System, method and article of manufacture for managing an environment of a development architecture framework

ABSTRACT

A system, method and article of manufacture are provided for managing an environment in a development architecture framework. Service of a system is managed based on service level agreements and/or operations level agreements. A plurality of system management operations are performed. The system management operations include start-up and shut-down operations, back-up and restore operations, archiving operations, security operations, and performance monitoring operations. Service is planned in order to anticipate and implement changes in the system.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is related to U.S. patent applications entitled “ASYSTEM, METHOD AND ARTICLE OF MANUFACTURE FOR BASE SERVICES PATTERNS INA NETCENTRIC ENVIRONMENT” (Ser. No. 09/387,653, filed on Aug. 31, 1999)and “A SYSTEM, METHOD AND ARTICLE OF MANUFACTURE FOR MAINTENANCE ANDADMINISTRATION IN AN E-COMMERCE APPLICATION FRAMEWORK” (Ser. No.09/388,910, filed Aug. 31, 1999) both of which are filed concurrentlyherewith and which are incorporated by reference in their entirety.

FIELD OF INVENTION

The present invention relates to development architecture frameworks,and more particularly to managing an environment of a developmentframework.

BACKGROUND OF INVENTION

An important use of computers is the transfer of information over anetwork. Currently, the largest computer network in existence is theInternet. The Internet is a worldwide interconnection of computernetworks that communicate using a common protocol. Millions ofcomputers, from low end personal computers to high-end super computersare coupled to the Internet.

The Internet grew out of work funded in the 1960s by the U.S. DefenseDepartment's Advanced Research Projects Agency. For a long time,Internet was used by researchers in universities and nationallaboratories to share information. As the existence of the Internetbecame more widely known, many users outside of the academic/researchcommunity (e.g., employees of large corporations) started to useInternet to carry electronic mail.

In 1989, a new type of information system known as the World-Wide-Web(“the Web”) was introduced to the Internet. Early development of the Webtook place at CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory. The Web isa wide-area hypermedia information retrieval system aimed to give wideaccess to a large universe of documents. At that time, the Web was knownto and used by the academic/research community only. There was no easilyavailable tool which allows a technically untrained person to access theWeb.

In 1993, researchers at the National Center for SupercomputingApplications (NCSA) released a Web browser called “Mosaic” thatimplemented a graphical user interface (GUI). Mosaic's graphical userinterface was simple to learn yet powerful. The Mosaic browser allows auser to retrieve documents from the World-Wide-Web using simplepoint-and-click commands. Because the user does not have to betechnically trained and the browser is pleasant to use, it has thepotential of opening up the Internet to the masses. The architecture ofthe Web follows a conventional client-server model. The terms “client”and “server” are used to refer to a computer's general role as arequester of data (the client) or provider of data (the server). Underthe Web, environment, Web browsers reside in clients and Web documentsreside in servers. Web clients and Web servers communicate using aprotocol called “HyperText Transfer Protocol” (HTTP). A browser opens aconnection to a server and initiates a request for a document. Theserver delivers the requested document, typically in the form of a textdocument coded in a standard Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) format,and when the connection is closed in the above interaction, the serverserves a passive role, i.e., it accepts commands from the client andcannot request the client to perform any action.

The communication model under the conventional Web environment providesa very limited level of interaction between clients and servers. In manysystems, increasing the level of interaction between components in thesystems often makes the systems more robust, but increasing theinteraction increases the complexity of the interaction and typicallyslows the rate of the interaction. Thus, the conventional Webenvironment provides less complex, faster interactions because of theWeb's level of interaction between clients and servers.

SUMMARY OF INVENTION

A system, method and article of manufacture are provided for managing anenvironment in a development architecture framework. Service of a systemis managed based on service level agreements and/or operations levelagreements. A plurality of system management operations are performed.The system management operations include start-up and shut-downoperations, back-up and restore operations, archiving operations,security operations, and performance monitoring operations. Service isplanned in order to anticipate and implement changes in the system.

In an embodiment of the present invention, the planning of service maybe carried out by service planning tools such as performance modelingtools and capacity modeling tools. In one embodiment of the presentinvention, the start-up and shut-down operations may be performed withthe start-up and shut-down operations being automated.

In one aspect of the present invention, the archiving operations may beperformed to transfer data between different mediums with differentcompression ratios. In another aspect of the present invention, theperformance monitoring operations may be performed to determine ifresources of the system are sufficient to meet a desired performancelevel.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

The invention will be better understood when consideration is given tothe following detailed description thereof. Such description makesreference to the annexed drawings wherein:

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a hardware implementation of oneembodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 2 is an illustration of the Integrated Development EnvironmentArchitecture (IDEA);

FIG. 2a is an illustration showing a Development Organization Frameworkin accordance with one embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 3 is an illustration showing a security organization functionalaccording to one embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 4 is an illustration showing the responsibilities of anEnvironmental Management Team;

FIG. 5 is an illustration showing the responsibilities of an ApplicationTeam structure;

FIG. 6 is an illustration showing a model migration plan in accordancewith one embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 7 is an illustration showing a single release capabilitydevelopment pipeline in accordance with one embodiment of the presentinvention;

FIG. 8 is an illustration showing a multiple release capabilitydevelopment pipeline in accordance with one embodiment of the presentinvention;

FIG. 9 is an illustration showing a multiple release capabilitydevelopment pipeline with code base synchronization among threepipelines;

FIG. 10 is all illustration showing a Development Tools Framework inaccordance with one embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 11 is an illustration showing information captured in theRepository and reused;

FIG. 12 is an illustration showing the Repository's central role in thedevelopment environment; and

FIG. 13 is an illustration showing an Operational Architecture Frameworkin accordance with one embodiment of the present invention.

DISCLOSURE OF INVENTION

A preferred embodiment of a system in accordance with the presentinvention is preferably practiced in the context of a personal computersuch as an IBM compatible personal computer, Apple Macintosh computer orUNIX based workstation. A representative hardware environment isdepicted in FIG. 1, which illustrates a typical hardware configurationof a workstation in accordance with a preferred embodiment having acentral processing unit 110, such as a microprocessor, and a number ofother units interconnected via a system bus 112. The workstation shownin FIG. 1 includes a Random Access Memory (RAM) 114, Read Only Memory(ROM) 116, an I/O adapter 118 for connecting peripheral devices such asdisk storage units 120 to the bus 112, a user interface adapter 122 forconnecting a keyboard 124, a mouse 126, a speaker 128, a microphone 132,and/or other user interface devices such as a touch screen (not shown)to the bus 112, communication adapter 134 for connecting the workstationto a communication network (e.g., a data processing network) and adisplay adapter 136 for connecting the bus 112 to a display device 138.The workstation typically has resident thereon an operating system suchas the Microsoft Windows NT or Windows/95 Operating System (OS), the IBMOS/2 operating system, the MAC OS, or UNIX operating system. Thoseskilled in the art will appreciate that the present invention may alsobe implemented on platforms and operating systems other than thosementioned.

A preferred embodiment is written using JAVA, C, and the C++ languageand utilizes object oriented programming methodology. Object orientedprogramming (OOP) has become increasingly used to develop complexapplications. As OOP moves toward the mainstream of software design anddevelopment, various software solutions require adaptation to make useof the benefits of OOP. A need exists for these principles of OOP to beapplied to a messaging interface of an electronic messaging system suchthat a set of OOP classes and objects for the messaging interface can beprovided.

OOP is a process of developing computer software using objects,including the steps of analyzing the problem, designing the system, andconstructing the program. An object is a software package that containsboth data and a collection of related structures and procedures. Sinceit contains both data and a collection of structures and procedures, itcan be visualized as a self-sufficient component that does not requireother additional structures, procedures or data to perform its specifictask. OOP, therefore, views a computer program as a collection oflargely autonomous components, called objects, each of which isresponsible for a specific task. This concept of packaging data,structures, and procedures together in one component or module is calledencapsulation.

In general, OOP components are reusable software modules which presentan interface that conforms to an object model and which are accessed atrun-time through a component integration architecture. A componentintegration architecture is a set of architecture mechanisms which allowsoftware modules in different process spaces to utilize each otherscapabilities or functions. This is generally done by assuming a commoncomponent object model on which to build the architecture. It isworthwhile to differentiate between an object and a class of objects atthis point. An object is a single instance of the class of objects,which is often just called a class. A class of objects can be viewed asa blueprint, from which many objects can be formed.

OOP allows the programmer to create an object that is a part of anotherobject. For example, the object representing a piston engine is said tohave a composition-relationship with the object representing a piston.In reality, a piston engine comprises a piston, valves and many othercomponents; the fact that a piston is an element of a piston engine canbe logically and semantically represented in OOP by two objects.

OOP also allows creation of an object that “depends from” anotherobject. If there are two objects, one representing a piston engine andthe other representing a piston engine wherein the piston is made ofceramic, then the relationship between the two objects is not that ofcomposition. A ceramic piston engine does not make up a piston engine.Rather it is merely one kind of piston engine that has one morelimitation than the piston engine; its piston is made of ceramic. Inthis case, the object representing the ceramic piston engine is called aderived object, and it inherits all of the aspects of the objectrepresenting the piston engine and adds further limitation or detail toit. The object representing the ceramic piston engine “depends from” theobject representing the piston engine. The relationship between theseobjects is called inheritance.

When the object or class representing the ceramic piston engine inheritsall of the aspects of the objects representing the piston engine, itinherits the thermal characteristics of a standard piston defined in thepiston engine class. However, the ceramic piston engine object overridesthese ceramic specific thermal characteristics, which are typicallydifferent from those associated with a metal piston. It skips over theoriginal and uses new functions related to ceramic pistons. Differentkinds of piston engines have different characteristics, but may have thesame underlying functions associated with it (e.g., how many pistons inthe engine, ignition sequences, lubrication, etc.). To access each ofthese functions in any piston engine object, a programmer would call thesame functions with the same names, but each type of piston engine mayhave different/overriding implementations of functions behind the samename. This ability to hide different implementations of a functionbehind the same name is called polymorphism and it greatly simplifiescommunication among objects.

With the concepts of composition-relationship, encapsulation,inheritance and polymorphism, an object can represent just aboutanything in the real world. In fact, our logical perception of thereality is the only limit on determining the kinds of things that canbecome objects in object-oriented software. Some typical categories areas follows:

Objects can represent physical objects, such as automobiles in atraffic-flow simulation, electrical components in a circuit-designprogram, countries in an economics model, or aircraft in anair-traffic-control system.

Objects can represent elements of the computer-user environment such aswindows, menus or graphics objects.

An object can represent an inventory, such as a personnel file or atable of the latitudes and longitudes of cities.

An object can represent user-defined data types such as time, angles,and complex numbers, or points on the plane.

With this enormous capability of an object to represent just about anylogically separable matters, OOP allows the software developer to designand implement a computer program that is a model of some aspects ofreality, whether that reality is a physical entity, a process, a system,or a composition of matter. Since the object can represent anything, thesoftware developer can create an object which can be used as a componentin a larger software project in the future.

If 90% of a new OOP software program consists of proven, existingcomponents made from preexisting reusable objects, then only theremaining 10% of the new software project has to be written and testedfrom scratch. Since 90% already came from an inventory of extensivelytested reusable objects, the potential domain from which an error couldoriginate is 10% of the program. As a result, OOP enables softwaredevelopers to build objects out of other, previously built objects.

This process closely resembles complex machinery being built out ofassemblies and sub-assemblies. OOP technology, therefore, makes softwareengineering more like hardware engineering in that software is builtfrom existing components, which are available to the developer asobjects. All this adds up to an improved quality of the software as wellas an increased speed of its development.

Programming languages are beginning to fully support the OOP principles,such as encapsulation, inheritance, polymorphism, andcomposition-relationship. With the advent of the C++ language, manycommercial software developers have embraced OOP. C++ is an OOP languagethat offers a fast, machine-executable code. Furthermore, C++ issuitable for both commercial-application and systems-programmingprojects. For now, C++ appears to be the most popular choice among manyOOP programmers, but there is a host of other OOP languages, such asSmalltalk, Common Lisp Object System (CLOS), and Eiffel. Additionally,OOP capabilities are being added to more traditional popular computerprogramming languages such as Pascal.

The benefits of object classes can be summarized, as follows:

Objects and their corresponding classes break down complex programmingproblems into many smaller, simpler problems.

Encapsulation enforces data abstraction through the organization of datainto small, independent objects that can communicate with each other.Encapsulation protects the data in an object from accidental damage, butallows other objects to interact with that data by calling the object'smember functions and structures.

Subclassing and inheritance make it possible to extend and modifyobjects through deriving new kinds of objects from the standard classesavailable in the system. Thus, new capabilities are created withouthaving to start from scratch.

Polymorphism and multiple inheritance make it possible for differentprogrammers to mix and match characteristics of many different classesand create specialized objects that can still work with related objectsin predictable ways.

Class hierarchies and containment hierarchies provide a flexiblemechanism for modeling real-world objects and the relationships amongthem.

Libraries of reusable classes are useful in many situations, but theyalso have some limitations. For example:

Complexity. in a complex system, the class hierarchies for relatedclasses can become extremely confusing, with many dozens or evenhundreds of classes.

Flow of control. A program written with the aid of class libraries isstill responsible for the flow of control (i.e., it must control theinteractions among all the objects created from a particular library).The programmer has to decide which functions to call at what times forwhich kinds of objects.

Duplication of effort. Although class libraries allow programmers to useand reuse many small pieces of code, each programmer puts those piecestogether in a different way. Two different programmers can use the sameset of class libraries to write two programs that do exactly the samething but whose internal structure (i.e., design) may be quitedifferent, depending on hundreds of small decisions each programmermakes along the way. Inevitably, similar pieces of code end up doingsimilar things in slightly different ways and do not work as welltogether as they should.

Class libraries are very flexible. As programs grow more complex, moreprogrammers are forced to reinvent basic solutions to basic problemsover and over again. A relatively new extension of the class libraryconcept is to have a framework of class libraries. This framework ismore complex and consists of significant collections of collaboratingclasses that capture both the small scale patterns and major mechanismsthat implement the common requirements and deign in a specificapplication domain. They were first developed to free applicationprogrammers from the chores involved in displaying menus, windows,dialog boxes, and other standard user interface elements for personalcomputers.

Frameworks also represent a change in the way programmers think aboutthe interaction between the code they write and code written by others.In the early days of procedural programming, the programmer calledlibraries provided by the operating system to perform certain tasks, butbasically the program executed down the page from start to finish, andthe programmer was solely responsible for the flow of control. This wasappropriate for printing out paychecks, calculating a mathematicaltable, or solving other problems with a program that executed in justone way.

The development of graphical user interfaces began to turn thisprocedural programming arrangement inside out. These interfaces allowthe user, rather than program logic, to drive the program and decidewhen certain actions should be performed. Today, most personal computersoftware accomplishes this by means of an event loop which monitors themouse, keyboard, and other sources of external events and calls theappropriate parts of the programmer's code according to actions that theuser performs. The programmer no longer determines the order in whichevents occur. Instead, a program is divided into separate pieces thatare called at unpredictable times and in an unpredictable order. Byrelinquishing control in this way to users, the developer creates aprogram that is much easier to use. Nevertheless, individual pieces ofthe program written by the developer still call libraries provided bythe operating system to accomplish certain tasks, and the programmermust still determine the flow of control within each piece after it'scalled by the event loop. Application code still “sits on top of” thesystem.

Even event loop programs require programmers to write a lot of code thatshould not need to be written separately for every application. Theconcept of an application framework carries the event loop conceptfurther. Instead of dealing with all the nuts and bolts of constructingbasic menus, windows, and dialog boxes and then making these things allwork together, programmers using application frameworks start withworking application code and basic user interface elements in place.Subsequently, they build from there by replacing some of the genericcapabilities of the framework with the specific capabilities of theintended application.

Application frameworks reduce the total amount of code that a programmerhas to write from scratch. However, because the framework is really ageneric application that displays windows, supports copy and paste, andso on, the programmer can also relinquish control to a greater degreethan event loop programs permit. The framework code takes care of almostall event handling and flow of control, and the programmer's code iscalled only when the framework needs it (e.g., to create or manipulate aproprietary data structure).

A programmer writing a framework program not only relinquishes controlto the user (as is also true for event loop programs), but alsorelinquishes the detailed flow of control within the program to theframework. This approach allows the creation of more complex systemsthat work together in interesting ways, as opposed to isolated programs,having custom code, being created over and over again for similarproblems.

Thus, as is explained above, a framework basically is a collection ofcooperating classes that make up a reusable design solution for a givenproblem domain. It typically includes objects that provide defaultbehavior (e.g., for menus and windows), and programmers use it byinheriting some of that default behavior and overriding other behaviorso that the framework calls application code at the appropriate times.

There are three main differences between frameworks and class libraries:

Behavior versus protocol. Class libraries are essentially collections ofbehaviors that you can call when you want those individual behaviors inyour program. A framework, on the other hand, provides not only behaviorbut also the protocol or set of rules that govern the ways in whichbehaviors can be combined, including rules for what a programmer issupposed to provide versus what the framework provides.

Call versus override. With a class library, the code the programmerinstantiates objects and calls their member functions. It's possible toinstantiate and call objects in the same way with a framework (i.e., totreat the framework as a class library), but to take full advantage of aframework's reusable design, a programmer typically writes code thatoverrides and is called by the framework. The framework manages the flowof control among its objects. Writing a program involves dividingresponsibilities among the various pieces of software that are called bythe framework rather than specifying how the different pieces shouldwork together.

Implementation versus design. With class libraries, programmers reuseonly implementations, whereas with frameworks, they reuse design. Aframework embodies the way a family of related programs or pieces ofsoftware work. It represents a generic design solution that can beadapted to a variety of specific problems in a given domain. Forexample, a single framework can embody the way a user interface works,even though two different user interfaces created with the sameframework might solve quite different interface problems.

Thus, through the development of frameworks for solutions to variousproblems and programming tasks, significant reductions in the design anddevelopment effort for software can be achieved. A preferred embodimentof the invention utilizes HyperText Markup Language (HTML) to implementdocuments on the Internet together with a general-purpose securecommunication protocol for a transport medium between the client and theNewco. HTTP or other protocols could be readily substituted for HTMLwithout undue experimentation. Information on these products isavailable in T. Berners-Lee, D. Connoly, “RFC 1866: Hypertext MarkupLanguage—2.0” (November 1995); and R. Fielding, H, Frystyk, T.Berners-Lee, J. Gettys and J. C. Mogul, “Hypertext TransferProtocol—HTTP/1.1: HTTP Working Group Internet Draft” (May 2, 1996).HTML is a simple data format used to create hypertext documents that areportable from one platform to another. HTML documents are SGML documentswith generic semantics that are appropriate for representing informationfrom a wide range of domains. HTML has been in use by the World-Wide Webglobal information initiative since 1990. HTML is an application of ISOStandard 8879; 1986 Information Processing Text and Office Systems;Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML).

To date, Web development tools have been limited in their ability tocreate dynamic Web applications which span from client to server andinteroperate with existing computing resources. Until recently, HTML hasbeen the dominant technology used in development of Web-based solutions.However, HTML has proven to be inadequate in the following areas:

Poor performance;

Restricted user interface capabilities;

Can only produce static Web pages;

Lack of interoperability with existing applications and data; and

Inability to scale.

Sun Microsystem's Java language solves many of the client-side problemsby:

Improving performance on the client side;

Enabling the creation of dynamic, real-time Web applications; and

Providing the ability to create a wide variety of user interfacecomponents.

With Java, developers can create robust User Interface (UI) components.Custom “widgets” (e.g., real-time stock tickers, animated icons, etc.)can be created, and client-side performance is improved. Unlike HTML,Java supports the notion of client-side validation, offloadingappropriate processing onto the client for improved performance.Dynamic, real-time Web pages can be created. Using the above-mentionedcustom UI components, dynamic Web pages can also be created. Sun's®Java® language has emerged as an industry-recognized language for“programming the Internet.” Sun defines Java as: “a simple,object-oriented, distributed, interpreted, robust, secure,architecture-neutral, portable, high-performance, multithreaded,dynamic, buzzword-compliant, general-purpose programming language. Javasupports programming for the Internet in the form ofplatform-independent Java applets.” Java applets are small, specializedapplications that comply with Sun's Java Application ProgrammingInterface (API) allowing developers to add “interactive content” to Webdocuments (e.g., simple animations, page adornments, basic games, etc.).Applets execute within a Java-compatible browser (e.g., NetscapeNavigator) by copying code from the server to client. From a languagestandpoint, Java's core feature set is based on C++. Sun's Javaliterature states that Java is basically, “C++ with extensions fromObjective C for more dynamic method resolution.”

Another technology that provides similar function to JAVA is provided byMicrosoft and ActiveX Technologies, to give developers and Web designerswherewithal to build dynamic content for the Internet and personalcomputers. ActiveX includes tools for developing animation, 3-D virtualreality, video and other multimedia content. The tools use Internetstandards, work on multiple platforms, and are being supported by over100 companies. The group's building blocks are called ActiveX Controls,small, fast components that enable developers to embed parts of softwarein hypertext markup language (HTML) pages. ActiveX Controls work with avariety of programming languages including Microsoft Visual C++, BorlandDelphi®, Microsoft Visual Basic® programming system and, in the future,Microsoft's development tool for Java, code named “Jakarta®.” ActiveXTechnologies also includes ActiveX Server Framework, allowing developersto create server applications. One of ordinary skill in the art readilyrecognizes that ActiveX could be substituted for JAVA without undueexperimentation to practice the invention.

Development Framework (IDEA)

FIG. 2 is an illustration of the Integrated Development EnvironmentArchitecture (IDEA). The Integrated Development Environment Architectureprovides a development environment framework and associated guidelinesthat reduce the effort and costs involved with designing, implementing,and maintaining an integrated development environment. IDEA takes aholistic approach to the development environment by addressing all threeBusiness Integration components: organization, processes, and tools.

The development environment is a production environment for one orseveral systems development projects as well as for maintenance efforts.It requires the same attention as a similarly sized end-user executionenvironment.

The purpose of the development environment is to support the tasksinvolved in the analysis, design, construction, and maintenance ofbusiness systems, as well as the associated management processes. Theenvironment should adequately support all the development tasks, notjust the code/compile/test/debug cycle. Given this, a comprehensiveframework for understanding the requirements of the developmentenvironment should be used.

Another reason for the comprehensive framework is that it is importantto get the development environment right the first time. Changing thedevelopment environment when construction is fully staffed entailsserious disruptions and expensive loss of productivity.

Experience has shown that within the same medium- to large-size project,with the same people, moving from a poor to a good developmentenvironment, productivity is improved by a factor of ten for many tasks.The improvements come in two categories:

The elimination of redundant and non value-added tasks

The streamlining of useful tasks

While it seems intuitive that most tasks can be streamlined, thefollowing list gives a few examples of redundant tasks that must beeliminated:

Analysis to determine how to merge the uncoordinated changes applied bytwo programmers to the same module

Re-entry of the source code and retesting of a module, which wasaccidentally deleted

Recurring discussions about “what a design packet should contain” or“what constitutes good programming style in a particular context”

Repeated design, coding, testing, and maintenance of very similar logic(for example, error handling, date conversion and manipulation, mainstructure of a module)

Searching for the manuals of a particular productivity tool to findinformation

Remigration to system test of a cycle, because the impact analysis for achange request was incomplete

Requesting support from another team (for example, environment support,information management) and waiting unnecessarily for a response

On a smaller project, these problems can be solved using a brute forceapproach. This becomes very expensive as the project grows, and finallyimpossible. A well-designed development environment becomes important asthe project team reaches 20-30 people and is absolutely critical with aproject size of more than 50 people.

The investment required to design, set up, and tune a comprehensive,good development and maintenance environment is typically severalhundred development days. Numbers between 400 and 800 days are commonlyseen, depending on the platforms, target environment complexity, amountof reuse, and size of the system being developed and maintained.

Development Organization Framework

FIG. 2a is an illustration showing a Development Organization Frameworkin accordance with one embodiment of the present invention. Whendesigning a business application, it is crucial to keep in mind theorganization that will use the system. The same is true of thedevelopment environment. The development organization's size, structure,experience, and maturity should strongly influence the choice of toolsand the way the tools are integrated. If this link is not understood,the benefit of tool support will be minimal in many areas, and maysignificantly reduce productivity.

In the same way, when a new business capability is introduced, it iscrucial to keep in mind the needs for training and organizational changethat which may accompany the technical change. This is also true of thedevelopment environment. When a new development environment is put inplace, the developers need to learn not only how each individual toolworks (for example, how to use the compiler), but also how the toolswork together to support the organization as it performs well definedprocesses.

The Business Integration Methodology (BIM) provides valuable informationon organizational issues.

Relying on the Business Integration Methodology and its projectorganization guidelines (0940—Organize Project Resource Task Package),the following should be prepared:

A list of responsibilities covering both responsibilities for endproducts and those for on-going processes

A Responsibility, Accountability, and Authority profiles deliverable(RAA) for each role in the Development team, making sure that all theresponsibilities listed earlier are covered

The RAA profiles deliverable consists of statements about theresponsibilities, accountability, and authority of each of the positionsin the development organization. These statements define the role ofeach position in terms of:

Responsibility—What objectives the position is expected to accomplish

Accountability—How and by whom the performance will be measured

Authority—The position's decision-making capabilities and limits

In accordance with the IDEA Model, the following management teams withresponsibilities for the key management functions are defined as:

The Information Management team 262

The Quality team 264

The Environment Management team 266

The Release Management team 268

The Configuration Management team 270

The Problem Management team 272

The Program and Project Management teams 274

The Security Management team 276

Together, these teams support the efforts of the System Building team,which is charged with the analysis, design, build, and test of thesystem to be developed. These teams represent real roles, and on a givenprogram the same people may play different roles.

Security Management

The evolution of new technologies and expanded access to a virtual worldhas increased the security risk of conducting business. It is thereforeessential to recognize the need for a new unit in the organization,specifically dedicated to ensuring that security is handledappropriately. At the Program level, the Security Management unit needsto:

Ensure all security issues are effectively addressed throughout theprogram (all business and IT processes).

Act as facilitator and approving body for all new and existinginitiatives that contain security components.

Own responsibility for the organization and facilitation of workinggroups that would address security issues.

Be responsible for development and maintenance of the Security Plan.

FIG. 3 is an illustration showing a security organization according toone embodiment of the present invention. A Security Management Team mayhave a security management 300, under which are an administration team302, a projects & planning team 304, and a business process securityteam 306. The size of the Security Management team, and the way in whichit is integrated into the development organization depends on the degreeto which security is a factor for each specific environment. Forexample, the security risks associated with an Internet-based onlinebanking system are far greater than those of a fully isolatedclient/server system, and therefore warrant a larger team with broaderresponsibilities and greater influence.

Information Management

The Information Management team is responsible for ensuring that theproject's knowledge capital and information resources are managedeffectively. This includes:

Ensuring integrity

Ensuring accessibility

Ensuring quality and consistency

Information Management encompasses Repository management, but generallyhas a broader scope than merely the repository contents, because mostrepositories are not capable of holding all the information resources ofa project. It is, for example, common to have key project informationreside in a combination of repositories, teamware databases, flat files,and paper documents. It is the Information Management team'sresponsibility to ensure consistency across all these formats. Theresponsibilities of the Information Management team therefore cover:

Repository Management

Folder Management

Object Management

Media Content Management

Information and data reuse coordination

In addition to managing the information for the System Building team,the Information Management team must also manage the informationresources of the other management processes—quality management,environment management, and project management.

In order to delineate the responsibilities of the Information Managementteam, it is useful to state those areas that are out of scope. Thefollowing are not included:

Performance of daily backups—this is handled by the EnvironmentManagement team

Database administration—this is part of the Architecture teamresponsibilities

Performance tuning of the information repositories—this is handled byEnvironment Management

Repository Management

The Information Management team is ultimately responsible for thecontents of the repository. They need to have an intimate understandingof the repository structure and the rules that govern how differentobjects should be stored in the repository.

Although most of the input to the repository are entered by designers,the Repository Management team must manage this population process.Rather than taking a policing role on the project, they should work asfacilitators—helping the designers do things correctly the first time,thereby maintaining the integrity of the repository. Without strongrepository management, the benefits of using a repository quicklydiminish.

In many situations the Information Management team must make decisionsthat affect functional areas. To empower the Information Managementteam, the Application teams should include the Information Managementteam in relevant design discussions. This facilitates the validation ofdesign outputs.

Folder Management

Folders (or directories) can be very useful in gaining control over theoverwhelming amount of information produced on a large project. Theirutility greatly increases if they are managed appropriately. Thismanagement is based on easy-to-follow, easy-to-enforce standards.

Object Management

The responsibilities involved with object management are very similar tothose involved with repository management. However, in order tofacilitate and promote reuse, it is recommended to have a librarianwhose responsibilities include:

Reviewing designs

Packaging classes and components for reuse

Managing maintenance and upgrades of common components (a strongrelationship with Configuration Management team is required)

Media Content Management

The methods of handling media content are somewhat different from thosesurrounding more traditional development content such as code ordocumentation, for this reason, a role should be defined that isresponsible for the management of all media content.

Quality Management

The Quality team is responsible for defining and implementing theQuality Management Approach, which means defining what Quality means forthe Program Leadership, and then implementing the procedures, standards,and tools required to ensure the delivery of a quality program. TheQuality Management Approach addresses concepts such as expectationmanagement, quality verification, process management, metrics, andcontinuous improvement.

Since quality is the result of the interaction of many teams working onmultiple processes, the Quality team is responsible for ensuringeffective cooperation between teams and good integration of thedevelopment processes. The Quality team must therefore forge stronglinks with all the other project teams.

It is important to note that the Quality team is not only responsiblefor ensuring the quality of the system building process. The Qualityteam is also directly involved in ensuring the quality of the other IDEAmanagement processes.

Program & Project Management

The Program Management team is responsible for delivering businesscapability. In this respect, it is responsible for the System Buildingand other management teams. In addition, other managementresponsibilities that do not have a specific team or role defined withinIDEA also belong to the Program Management team. These include:

Contingency Management

Financial Management

Issue Management (decisions to be made regarding the development of thebusiness capability, not to be confused with problem management)

Program Performance Reporting

Resource Management

Risk Management

Vendor Management

The Project Management team is responsible for producing a deliverableor set of deliverables. As such, it is responsible for:

Planning and control of delivery

Milestones and schedule

Resource consumption

Risk and quality (at deliverable level)

Configuration Management

The Configuration Management team is responsible for defining theapproach the program takes to deal with scope, change control, versioncontrol, and migration control, and for putting in place the policies,processes, and procedures required to implement this approach.

In other words, the team is responsible for maintaining the integrity ofsoftware and critical documents as they evolve through the delivery lifecycle from analysis through deployment.

Release Management

Delivering a system on a release-based approach means delivering thesystem in a series of consecutive releases, increasing or refiningfunctionality progressively. Some of the main drivers to such anapproach include:

To release business benefits early

To mitigate impact on the organization

To keep the change program up to date

To optimize processes

To test proof of concept

To reduce risk

The Release Management team is responsible for:

Planning the capability release design and development effort, based onthe capability development approach and timeline.

Measuring and monitoring progress using established processes to ensurethat a capability release is delivered on time, within budget, and thatit meets or exceeds expectations.

Managing project interdependencies to ensure delivery of the capabilityrelease.

Ensuring that resources are used effectively across projects for therelease.

As with many other management responsibilities described in IDEA,Release Management is more a role than a function. It is good practiceto have as many areas as possible represented in the Release Managementteam; for example, Design, Construction, Configuration, and EnvironmentManagement team members would make up a typical Release Management team,each providing input based on their own perspective.

Environment Management

Just as a business application requires support and system users requireservice, the development environment requires system operations daily,and developers require ongoing support in order to use the environmenteffectively (In fact, the complexity and frequence of these operationsis often greater than that of the execution environment).

To ensure that this area receives the necessary attention, anEnvironment Management team 400 should be assigned these tasks. FIG. 4is an illustration showing the Environmental Management Teamresponsibilities.

The Service Group 402 serves as a single point of contact fordevelopers. It interfaces with the Architecture team to provide answersto questions from developers. To avoid adding overhead to the issueresolution process, the support group must be staffed adequately toensure that all questions are answered. For example, the support groupshould recruit people from the Technology Infrastructure team at thecompletion of Technology Infrastructure development.

Problem Management

Problem Management is concerned with the discrepancies that result fromthe testing process and the management of design problems detectedduring verification or validation steps throughout the developmentprocess.

The Problem Management team is responsible for defining the problemtracking and solution process, and for providing tools and procedures tosupport the solution process.

System Building

The Business Integration Methodology (BIM) describes System Buildingunder the following activities:

Design application

Build and test application

Design technology infrastructure

Build and test technology infrastructure

For this reason, the System Building teams are organized intoapplication and technology Infrastructure.

Application Team

The Application team 500 consists of three separate subteams:Application Architecture 502, Application Development 504, and SystemTest 506. FIG. 5 is an illustration showing the Application Teamstructure and responsibilities.

The structure of the Application team evolves as the development processcontinues—as the development of the application architecture componentsis completed, the Application Architecture team's roles may change.While the team continues maintaining the application architecturecomponents, some team members may be deployed to the ApplicationDevelopment team. Here their roles can include helping applicationdevelopers to correctly use the architecture components, providingdevelopment support, and performing code reviews, and so forth.

As systems become more user-facing, important new roles are emergingthat must be integrated into the Application Development teams:

a) Media Content Design

For any system with a user-facing component, it is extremely importantthat media and design specialists are involved as team members at anearly stage in the design of the system. In systems with simple userinterfaces, this helps to ensure usability and consistency. As userinterfaces become more complex, the early involvement of design expertsnot only leads to more creative and attractive user interfaces, but alsoreduces the risk of further alteration to work at a later stage.

b) Usability

Often coupled with Media Content Design, it is vital that a role forusability is defined within the Application Development teams. This willensure the usability of the system from the perspective of target usergroups.

Technology Infrastructure Team

The technology infrastructure evolves throughout the project andresponsibility for managing and evolving the infrastructure must beclearly defined. Therefore, rather than having a single amorphous‘technical team’ (responsible for operations, support, architectureevolution, and more), it is important to define a dedicated technologyinfrastructure team. By allowing the technology infrastructure team tofocus on the technology infrastructure, rather than the day to dayrunning of the environment, the project increases the chances that thetechnology infrastructure will provide good support for the businessapplications.

In practice, the Technology Infrastructure team is the team that willimplement the IDEA framework.

The Technology Infrastructure team is responsible for:

Data design and management

Database administration

Database tuning

Execution architecture design and construction

Development architecture design and construction

Operations architecture design and construction

Network design

Technical standards design and documentation

System software selection

Performance tuning of the final system

Security infrastructure development

Note: The responsibilities of the Technology Infrastructure team mayoverlap with those of the Application Architecture team, and on someprojects the two teams are often combined:

Development Processes Framework

A thorough understanding of the development processes is a prerequisitefor ensuring that the tools effectively support the organization and theprocesses they are intended to support.

The Development Process Model

The Development Process Model is a framework that facilitates theanalysis of the many concurrent processes of systems development. Thisanalysis helps understand process interaction, which, in turn, affectsorganizational interaction and defines a need for tools integration.

The Process model is simple—at its core is the system building process,which is surrounded by eight key management processes.

The core activity—systems building, depends strongly on support from thesurrounding management processes, which all affect each other:

a) Information Management manages the information that supports theentire project—information that is used both in systems. building and inother management processes

b) Security Management covers all areas of development security, fromcoding standards, to security verification.

c) Quality Management pertains to all areas of the developmentenvironment

d) Program and Project Management must manage all the managementprocesses in addition to managing the systems building process

e) Environment Management supports the environment where managementprocesses are performed, and where systems are being built

f) Release Management manages the simultaneous development of multiplereleases

g) Configuration Management, often closely linked with releasemanagement covers the version control, migration control and changecontrol of system components such as code and its associateddocumentation

h) Problem Management pertains to the problem tracking and solutionprocess

Process Definition

For a given project, each of the processes must be defined at a greaterlevel of detail than that which any methodology can achieve. Thisadditional specification consists of a set of procedures and standardsthat specify how to perform the work and what to produce at each step.

Standards specify what the results should look like. They may includeindustry standards and more formal (de jure) standards, such as POSIXcompliance, but most standards are project specific and determine, forexample, how to structure and name system components and where to placesystem components. Standards make it possible for a large team toexchange information effectively and to work productively together.

Standards should focus on what must be common, and should not become agoal in themselves. Erring on the side of over-standardization stiflesproductivity. It is, however, often the case that unforeseen events(such as platform demise, tool evolution) will be easier to tackle themore unified the development approach has been used. Unfortunately,there is no substitute for experience when making the detailed decisionson exactly what should be standardized. Factors to take into accountmust at least include:

Life expectancy of the system under development—the higher the lifeexpectancy, the more standards are warranted

Life expectancy of the development organization—the higher the lifeexpectancy, the more standards are justified

Attrition—a stable organization can tackle more detailed standards thana volatile one

Expected change in the environment—a high rate of change providesgreater opportunity to reap the benefits of a standardized approach

Procedures specify how to perform a task. They are generally guided bythe methodology but provide information at a lower level of detail. Theyare highly environment-specific, and take into account the organization,the standards, and the tools in the environment. Procedures oftenspecify the techniques to be used. They may specify which tools to useand how to use the tools that support these techniques.

Many processes require individual judgment, and the way to perform theseprocesses cannot be specified in detail. In such cases, it may bevaluable to provide guidelines that do not have the mandatory flavor ofprocedures but rather that of valuable advice.

While it is easy to generate zeal to set up standards and procedures atthe beginning of a project, it can sometimes be more difficult to ensurethat these are enforced throughout the project. Two considerations areuseful. Firstly, standards must be easy to follow. It should be easierto follow the standard than doing things any other way. This isgenerally achieved by supplying the training, tools, and support neededto facilitate a given work style. For example, developing anddistributing application program shells, which respect the architectureand standards, facilitates programming and contributes to ensuring broadstandards compliance. Secondly, the responsibility for enforcingstandards must be clearly identified and assigned. Standards enforcementmust take place as a natural part of the process and at well-definedcheck points before work flows to the next task, or (even moreimportantly) to the next group or team.

A very useful way of complementing the specification of procedures is toprovide samples. Samples can sometimes convey a message much faster thanpages of explanatory prose. Sample programs are generally very useful.Other samples may include logs, which demonstrate interaction withtools, a sample change request, or a sample request for technicalsupport. Samples can sometimes be created efficiently by taking screendumps. This can be much faster than specifying what the screen shouldlook like in theory.

Samples and standards must be high quality—any quality breach will bemultiplied when developers start using them. It is therefore imperativethat samples and standards not be created in a vacuum but be based onconcrete experience with the project's development environment. Somepilot development work often proves extremely useful when fine tuningthe standards.

When documenting the process, it is useful to develop an approach andprocess description for each project segment and for each high-levelprocess. This document summarizes the support available for that segmentor process. It refers to all the standards, procedures, guidelines, andexamples relevant to a collection of tasks. Such a summary documentmakes it easier for developers to navigate the standards and hence tofollow them.

Process Integration

To ensure that the project team works effectively together, numerousprocesses must be integrated. A simple example is provided by therequired integration between design and construction. A more subtle oneis the integration of product quality inspection and the continuousimprovement process.

As process integration frequently involves several teams, it is crucialto understand the interfaces between processes and teams to ensure goodhand-offs. This understanding must have a direct impact on toolsintegration, so that integrated processes are supported by integratedtools. Tools that support multiple processes performed by the sameindividual must, at a minimum, be integrated at the user interface leveland should ideally be integrated at the process level. Tools thatsupport processes performed by different individuals may only have to beintegrated at the data level.

See Tools—Process Management for more details.

Security Management

Processes must be put into place in order to ensure security is properlydesigned and built into the system that is being developed, including:

Definition of security requirements based on business risk

Development of security standards, guidelines and procedures

Implementation of security controls

Security validation

Security Requirement Definition

Security requirements are the outcome of the security Risk Assessment.This is the process of identifying business risks, identifying systemvulnerabilities or weaknesses that can impact those risks, andrecommending mechanisms to control the vulnerabilities. Specificconfidentiality, integrity and availability requirements for the newsystem and the development environment are defined through this process.

Security Standards, Guidelines and Procedures

Security standards, guidelines and procedures provide security directionto the implementation. They will help define how the securityrequirements developed through the Risk Assessment must be addressed inall areas of the development environment. They will include securitystandards for the development environment infrastructure, procedures forthe development processes, standards for the design of the securityarchitecture and security guidelines for programming. It is especiallyimportant to ensure the security of the development environment becauseif these systems are broken into and back doors are introduced, it maylead to later compromise of the production system. It will be theresponsibility of all developers that these security controls areimplemented and adhered to throughout the development process.

Security Validation

In order to ensure the security of the system, periodical securityaudits should be arranged, in order to verify that the processes andarchitecture and application components that are being developed conformto security proven practices. This may be done by an external bodyspecializing in security (such as Global TIS—Security) in the form ofinterviews, architecture and code reviews, and automated toolassessment.

Information Management (262)

A vast amount of information is generated within the developmentenvironment, which needs to be carefully managed (for example, designdocumentation, application code, media content, test plans and testdata). Information Management generally involves Repository Management,Folder Management and, where applicable, Object Management and MediaContent Management. Since a number of teams rely on the service providedby the information management team, it is important that the level ofservice to be provided be chosen carefully, documented, andcommunicated. The arrangement should take the form of a Service LevelAgreement (SLA). Such an SLA typically defines how quickly a new dataelement is created and how repository changes are communicated. Moregenerally it defines the division of responsibilities between theinformation management team and the other project teams at a detailedlevel.

Repository Management (202)

Repository Management includes activities such as:

Monitoring and controlling update activities in the repository

Receiving and validating data element change requests

Creating and modifying data elements

Enforcing project standards regarding repository objects

Validating the contents of the repository to avoid redundancy andinconsistencies

Ensuring accuracy of the repository contents so that the repositoryreflects the applications being developed

Importing and exporting from one repository to another

Maintenance of the information model (or metamodel), which describes howdata is represented within the repository

As many repositories do not provide sufficient versioning functionality,it is common to have more than one repository on large projects.Typically, there may be one repository for development, one for systemtest, and one for production. This allows better control, but alsorequires significant resources to move repository objects from thedevelopment environment to the system test environment. By merging thedevelopment and system test repositories, the medium-sized project has apotential for productivity gains. If these gains are to be realized,great care must be taken when making corrections during system test. Asa common repository is shared, any error analysis involving repositoryobjects must take into account the possibility that these objects couldhave changed since the previous migration to system test. This situationcan be managed by meticulously maintaining a comprehensive change log.

Another reason for maintaining several copies of the repository is theexistence of concurrent projects focusing on different releases. If thisis the case, it may be beneficial to maintain delta repositories, whichdocument those components that have been modified. This requires strictrepository management but the reward can be significant. It allows themerging of several releases, which have implemented complementaryfunctionality, but which have modified a few shared components.

A single development environment may have to deal with multiplerepositories:

For functional reasons, one repository might be integrated with anupper-case design tool and the other with a lower-case generation tool

In a multi-site environment, repositories may be distributed overdifferent locations. In order to keep these repositories synchronized,well defined development processes must be implemented.

Repository Management can be divided into the following areas:

Security

Maintenance

Validation and mass change

Analysis, reporting, and querying

Security

Restricted access to various repository object types is necessary toensure high quality repository content, because developers sometimestake shortcuts and make unauthorized changes to meet their deadlines.When standards have been set, a good way to enforce them is to restrictpersonnel through the use of locking mechanisms. Access to repositoryobject types will change throughout the project.

The data elements should usually be controlled by the RepositoryManagement team, because they are the basic building blocks of thesystem and have broad reuse. Poorly defined data elements can causeinconsistency, redundancy, and generation errors. Data elements shouldtherefore be locked at least by the time construction starts, andpossibly earlier, depending on the discipline of the team. Projectmembers must be allowed to browse the data elements, but only theRepository Management team should be allowed to modify or unlock dataelements. In some repositories, it is difficult to restrict the creationof repository objects. If this is the case, it may be acceptable to letdesigners create data elements if these are reviewed and locked at theend of each day. Increased control can be obtained by having designerssubmit requests for new data elements to the repository administrator.This allows the repository manager to evaluate whether the new dataelement is justified, or whether an existing one should be used.

Repository Maintenance

a) Creating and Maintaining Data Elements

Requests for data element changes can be forwarded using a database orpaper-based system. Based on functional and technical knowledge, therepository administrator evaluates the requests and may involve otherteams to make appropriate decisions. The database used to request dataelement changes during design and programming should be separate fromthe project's change request database. This will simplify and speed upthe change process. When data elements have to be changed during systemtest, however, the impact can be much greater, and the regular changerequest database should be used.

Whenever a data element is changed, impact analysis must be performed tounderstand the side-effects. Where-used reports are useful to determinethese side-effects. The repository manager must be able to obtain thelist of direct references and the list of all components affectedindirectly (transitive closure). In the latter case, a message based ona record containing a group, which makes reference to a changed dataelement is considered to be indirectly affected by the change. Whenadding a data element, no functional equivalent must exist, becauseredundancy creates difficulties for impact analysis and futuremaintenance.

b) Creating and Maintaining Other Repository Objects

The objects related to dialog definitions, reports, messages, and soforth, are usually maintained by the designers and programmers. When thedialogs and report programs are tested, approved, and ready to bepromoted to the system test environment, the related objects must belocked. This is the responsibility of the Repository Management team.

Repository Validation and Mass Changes

Keeping thousands of data elements consistent and in compliance withproject standards requires a sustained effort. This daily effort iscrucial to avoid a massive clean-up, which would be necessary if therepository manager ever lost control of the repository.

Detailed, project-specific standards should exist for definingrepository objects. These standards can form the basis for a repositoryvalidation program, which can run through the entire repository andreport on detected deviations from standards. In some cases, thisprogram can also enforce the standard.

Mass changes to the repository can be performed when the validationreports show the occurrence of many standards violations that follow acommon pattern. This may occur in cases where:

Project standards have been incomplete

Project standards have changed

Repository management has been poor

New objects have been imported from another repository

Analysis, Reports, and Queries

Certain reports should be run daily, such as the list of new dataelements or modified data elements. These reports can serve as an audittrail of changes and can be used to communicate changes to the entireteam. Procedures should specify which reports are run daily and whattheir distribution should be.

The Repository Management team performs certain analyses repeatedly.Standard analyses such as impact analyses should be specified in detailto facilitate staffing flexibility.

When supporting specific kinds of repository analysis, the RepositoryManagement team can provide custom reports or ad hoc queries thatsatisfy particular needs.

Folder Management (204)

It is important to set up and communicate a detailed folder structurewith specified access rights from the beginning. Contents of foldersmust be checked regularly to ensure that folders contain what they aresupposed to.

Two main strategies exist.

Folders can be organized by type of component so that one foldercontains all the include files, one folder contains the source modules,one folder contains executables, and so on.

Folders can also be organized functionally so that all the commoncomponents reside in one folder and each application area stores itscomponents in its own folder.

Choosing the strategy depends on how components are named, on the numberof components, and on the tools used. If naming standards make it easyto identify the component type (for example, by using suffixes),organizing them by functional area is generally useful andstraightforward to administer. Some tools assume that closely linkedfiles (for example, source and object modules) reside in the samefolder.

Another important distinction is the one between work in progress andcompleted documents that have been approved. This distinction can besupported by a folder structure with carefully chosen access rights.

This distinction makes it easy to retrieve a consistent copy of projectdocumentation for someone who is new to the project.

While scratch folders may be useful in certain contexts, theproliferation of miscellaneous folders with cryptic names can make itvery difficult to navigate the information. Some useful guidelinesinclude:

Keep the folder structure under central control.

Within personal folders, allow users to create any folder structure.

Clearly assign ownership for the contents of each folder.

Document each folder, either in a central location, or in the form of areadme type file within the folder itself. The high-level documentationshould include the purpose of the folder and the kinds of contents itshould hold.

Perform regular clean-up, by backing up redundant or misplaced files andthen removing them.

Media Content Management (206)

The unique nature of media content means that it cannot be treated inthe same way as ‘standard’ formats, such as source code or designdocumentation. The major differentiating factors are its sheer volume(media files can range from a Kilobyte to multiple Gigabytes), and thecomplexity of its associated formats (i.e. it is not easy to ‘look into’a media file and understand its contents). For this reason, some of theprocesses that support multimedia content management must be handleddifferently. The three major processes that are required to supportmedia content management are:

Storage management

Metadata management

Version control

Storage Management

Storage management concerns the methods of storing and retrieving mediacontent. The cost of data storage may be decreasing, but it is still thecase that for large volumes of media it is often uneconomical to storeeverything on-line. For this reason, processes must be implemented tomanage where data should be stored, and how it may be transitioned fromone location to another. There are three ways to store data:

On-line (Instant access, for example, hard disk)

Near-line (delayed access, for example, CD-ROM jukebox)

Off-line (manual access, for example, CDs or tapes on shelves)

When deciding on where media content should be stored, there is always atrade-off between accessibility and cost (on-line storage being the mostaccessible and most expensive, and off-line the cheapest but leastaccessible). The decision of which method to use for which data maydepend on a combination of its type, volume, version (i.e. latest orhistoric) and accessibility requirements.

Metadata Management

Data about the media that is being stored is an important commodity thatmust be managed. As the volume of media content grows, it is vital to beable to understand characteristics of the media, in order to be able tomanage it correctly. Examples of metadata include:

Media type (for example, MPEG video, JPEG image)

Media settings (for example, sample rate, resolution, compressionattributes)

Usage details (which module uses the content)

Media source (for example, Source, author, creation date)

Legal information (for example, whether the media is copyrighted)

Version Control

As with standard development code, when media content is created andedited, a revision history of changes should be retained. This way, ifit is necessary to revert to an original piece of media content, it isnot necessary to go all the way back to the original source (which inthe case of finding an image in a CD-ROM library containing 10,000images, for example, could be a difficult task). In practice, this maymean storing the original and final copies of media (especially wherevolume is an issue). For this reason, a process for managing multipleversions of media content must be put into place.

The more advanced media content management tools may provide much of thefunctionality required to support these processes, but where this is notthe case, the processes must be implemented manually.

c) Legal Issue Management

When dealing with media, it is often the case that content may besubject to copyright laws. It is important that the legal implicationssurrounding all content in the system is understood, and wherenecessary, royalties paid to the appropriate parties.

Object Management (208)

Object Management processes are very similar to those involved withRepository Management. However, they should promote reuse throughspecific processes:

Design review

Classes and components packaging for reuse

Common components maintenance and upgrade

Quality Management (264)

Quality Management is described at length in the Business IntegrationMethodology (BIM).

The Quality Management processes are covered by the following tasks:

0623—Define Quality Management Approach

0732—Implement Quality Management Approach

The objective of these tasks is to ensure that, early in the life of aprogram, program leadership explicitly defines what quality means forthe program. This results in the production of the quality plan. Thenthe infrastructure and processes are put in place to ensure delivery ofa quality program.

The Quality Management Approach defines the following processes:

Expectation Management

Quality Verification

Process Management

Metrics

Continuous Improvement

Rewards and Recognition

Training and Orientation

Focus here is on those processes that have a direct impact on IDEA andits components (that is, Systems Building and the management processes).

Expectation Management Process

Expectations can be thought of as quality objectives expressed inmeasurable terms such as:

Functionality

Reliability

Usability

Efficiency

Maintainability

Portability

Security

Quality Verification Process

The targets for quality verification should be defined. Processes anddeliverables are key candidates.

In development terms, the V-model is the preferred method by which thequality verification process is managed. The V-model ensures thatdeliverables are verified, validated, and tested. It is based on theconcept of stage containment (enforcing for a given deliverable theidentification of the problems before it goes to the next stage) andentry and exit criteria (describes conditions in which a deliverablepasses from one stage to another).

The quality verification process owner may not be responsible forexecuting the V-model, but is responsible for making sure that theV-model is in place and complied with.

Metrics Process (210)

To fine-tune the development process, the important quality attributesmust be measured. Sample metrics include:

Development environment availability

Time needed for a new user to learn to use a function of the developmentenvironment

User error rate per function

User satisfaction per function

Code complexity

Code structure

Productivity

Average number of defects per design packet at the moment constructionstarts

Average number of defects per program at the time of its first migrationto system test

Once the key metrics are agreed upon, procedures must be put in placeto:

Perform the measurements (these should flow from the developmentprocesses in a natural way)

Compare results with the goals documented in the quality plan

Analyze deviations, with key focus on the process that caused thedeviation

Adjust the processes so that similar deviations do not occur in thefuture

Continuous Improvement Process (212)

The first stage of the Continuous Improvement Process (CIP) is tocapture continuous improvement opportunities. These may include:

Gaps identified by metrics

Analysis of program performance-internal quality verification results

Process reviews

Capability Maturity Model (CMM) assessments (See Standards andProcedures)

Suggestions made by program team members; for example, through asuggestion box

The CIP then plans and manages improvement related activities such as:

Define explicit criteria for assigning priority

Consider raising the priority of low-priority opportunities that can becompleted quickly

Maintain a mix of high-priority and sure successes to ensure thecontinued momentum

of the Continuous Improvement program

Define the opportunity selection process

Identify the resource allocation process

Define the scheduling process

Identify how the effort will be monitored

Identify the procedure for communicating results to the organization

Establish a continuous improvement organization to support the process

Prioritize and classify opportunities

Select projects

Allocate resources and scheduling

Monitor effort

Support a standard process improvement process across the project

While maintaining quality at a program level, the Quality Managementteam must liaise with each of the organizational units within thedevelopment environment in order to monitor the quality managementprocesses within these units.

Standards and Procedures

The Capability Maturity Model (CMM) for Software describes the softwareengineering and management practices that characterize organizations asthey mature their processes for developing and maintaining software.

The CMM provides a software organization with guidance on how to gaincontrol over their processes for developing and maintaining software andhow to evolve toward a culture of software engineering and managementexcellence. The model defines five levels of software process maturityas well as how to move from one level to the level above.

For more details, refer to Consistently Delivering Value: The CMM—How toHelp Your Project Measure Up.

The V-model is a framework that promotes stage containment by organizingthe verification, validation, and testing in and across all themethodology elements throughout the delivery phase of the BusinessIntegration Methodology.

For more details, please refer to the V-model overview job-aid in theBusiness Integration Methodology.

The IMPROVE Job Aid (provided with the BIM Guide) describes the processfor solving problems or improving a process. In this Job Aid, you willfind an introduction to the five step process your team can use to solveboth simple and complex problems. The Quality Action Team (QAT) isresponsible for applying IMPROVE to improve a process or solve aproblem.

Program and Project Management (274)

Program Management

Program Management focuses on the continuous oversight needed to supportthe delivery of business capability through multiple projects andreleases. Appropriate disciplines, techniques, and tools are used toplan and organize the work, and to manage the incremental delivery ofthe new business capability.

Program Management consists of three major activities, each split into anumber of task packages.

a) Plan Program

0610—Understand Program Expectations

0620—Plan Management Processes

0640—Develop Program Master Plan

0650—Design Initial Teamwork Environment*

0670—Plan Delivery

0680—Create Program Plan

b) Mobilize Program

0710—Obtain and Deploy Resources

0730—Implement Management Processes

0750—Establish Program Management Office

0770—Implement Initial Teamwork Environment*

0790—Establish Orientation and Training

c) Manage and Improve Program

0810—Direct Program

0820—Execute Management Processes

0830—Analyze Program Performance

0840—Plan and Implement Program Improvements

0850—Operate Program Management Office

0860—Authorize Build and Test

0870—Authorize Deployment

0880—Operate Team Work Environment*

*The Team Work environment, in the domain of the developmentenvironment, includes those parts of the development environment whichare consistent across the entire program (e.g. Collaborative tools)

0890—Conduct Program Close-Out

Project Management

Project Management focuses on providing specific deliverables throughbalanced management of scope, quality, effort, risk, and schedule.Project Management processes follow a cycle of planning the project'sexecution, organizing its resources, and controlling its work. TheProject Management team oversees all other teams within the developmentenvironment.

Project Management comprises a single activity containing a number oftask packages.

a) Plan and Manage Project

0920—Plan Project Execution

0940—Organize Project Resources

0960—Control Project Work

0990—Complete Project

Configuration Management (270)

Configuration Management is not only the management of the components ina given environment to ensure that they collectively satisfy givenrequirements, but it is the management of the environment itself. Theenvironment consists not only of system components, but also of themaintenance of these components and the hardware, software, processes,procedures, standards, and policies that govern the environment.

Configuration Management in systems building consists of four majorinterdependencies:

Packaging

Version control 214

Migration control 216

Change control 218

Standards and Procedures

a) Packaging Plan

Packaging is the combination of systems software and applicationcomponent configurations (source code, executable modules, DDL andscripts, HTML) together with their respective documentation. It may alsoinclude the test-data, test scripts, and other components that must bealigned with a given version of the configuration. Packaging allows thegrouping of components into deliverable packets of application softwarethat can be developed, tested, and eventually delivered to theproduction environment. Packaging defines the underlying architecturethat drives version, change, and migration control. Each of thesecontrol processes defines how changes to configuration packages areversioned and migrated to the various development and test phases in thesystems development life cycle.

A sample packaging strategy would take into consideration some of thefollowing factors in determining a unique method to handle a givenconfiguration packet in terms of version, change, and migration control:

Base package type—identifies the various types of application componentsthat are developed during systems building such as executables, JCL,HTML scripts, and Java applets.

Package release type—identifies the types of commonality that componentscan have. There are usually four basic types of components that aredeveloped during systems building:

Technology architecture packages—these packages are developed by theTechnology Architecture team and are used by all other projects in aprogram

Program-wide packages—these packages are developed by the ApplicationDevelopment teams but are used by other projects in the program. Theyare common components that are not owned by the Technology Architectureteam

Application common packages—these packages are developed by theApplication Development team and are used internally on the project byapplication developers

Application packages—these packages are the most rudimentary of allpackages developed. They consist of basic application componentsdeveloped by application developer

Package platform type—identifies the eventual delivery platform of thepackage. Identifying this early on in development and encapsulating thisinformation within the package definition, allows developers to envisagethe production environment at an early stage during the systemsdevelopment life cycle.

Given these three basic package definitions, a configuration managementcube can be defined, which uniquely identifies version, change, andmigration control characteristics of a given package. The cube can beused to implement a table-driven configuration management control systemfor all software developed on the program. The configuration controlsystem consists of version and migration control. Therefore, the cubedefines all processes associated with version control and migration of apackage.

b) Version Control (214)

Version control and compatibility are key considerations when managingthese packages. Note that version control not only applies to softwarecomponents, but also to all components of a given package, includingtest scripts, test data, and design documentation. It is also of greatimportance to keep track of which version is in which environment. Ifincompatibilities are discovered, it must always be possible to “rollback” to a previous consistent state, that is, to revert to an earlierversion of one or more components. It must be possible to definereleases of a configuration—a list of version numbers, one for eachcomponent of the package which together form a consistent configuration.The smallest unit that can be version controlled should be the packageas defined in the packaging plan. This ensures that the lowest commondenominator in all version control activities is managed at the packagelevel.

c) Migration Control (216)

A systems building environment can have many development and teststages. On a large project these may include:

Development and unit test

Assembly test

System test

Integration test

User acceptance test

Migration of packages or consistent configurations from one stage toanother is a central part of Configuration Management. The key tosuccessful migration is the knowledge of what constitutes each stage.Examples of migration include:

Migration from development and unit test to system test

Migration from user acceptance test to production

Migration of development tools from the Technology Architecture team tothe developers on the project

Migration of architecture components from the Technology Architectureteam to the developers on the project

Stages and their constituents exist as a result of certain user andtechnical requirements. The technical requirements are derived from theuser requirements. It is crucial to develop a migration plan that mapsout the progression on configuration packages throughout the systemsdevelopment life cycle. FIG. 6 is an illustration showing a modelmigration plan in accordance with one embodiment of the presentinvention.

The FIG. 6 model allows the development and testing of architecturecomponents independent of application components. The TechnologyArchitecture team can develop 600, assembly test 602, and system test604 their components before delivering them to the developmentenvironment for the application developers. This ensures that thearchitecture is thoroughly tested before being used by the Applicationteams. The model also illustrates the progression of architecture andapplication components through the systems development life cycle. Theapplication developers can then develop 606, assembly test 608, andsystem test 610 their components before user acceptance tests 612. Themodel is a temporal one and thus suggests that architecture must bepresent at a given stage before the introduction of applicationcomponents.

The version control plan must align with the migration control plan. Theversion control plan defines the points where version control activitieswill take place. In the above example, version control will take placeat the development stages, architecture development and unit test, andapplication development and unit test.

Migration control defines how these version control configurationpackages will be migrated successfully from one stage to the next untilthe package is eventually released to the production environment.

d) Change control (218)

Change requests as a consequence of changing requirements and changesrequested due to nonconformities (or defects), either in the applicationsoftware, or in the system software must be analyzed, authorized,scheduled, staffed, and tracked in a defined way. What, why, when, andwho made a change must be tracked from the point of analysis to thereintroduction of the defective or changed component at the appropriatestage. Change control therefore governs what software component ischanged, version controlled, and when it is remigrated to a givendevelopment stage. It is important to link the general change requestwith the requests produced during formal testing phases. This makes theprocesses clearer.

Configuration Management becomes more complex in a component-baseddevelopment environment as the system is broken down to a greater levelof granularity.

Release Management (268)

Release Management involves coordinating activities that contribute to arelease (for example, cross-project management) and the coordination ofproducts that contribute to a release (such as architecture,integration, and packaging). It is concerned with managing a singlerelease rather than cross-release management. The Release Managementapproach documents critical decisions regarding the management,tracking, and integrity of all components and configurations within agiven release. The Release Management approach must be closelycoordinated with the definition of the Configuration Management approachand the Problem Management approach. Release Management involves twomain components:

The coordination of activities that contribute to a release

The coordination of products that contribute to a release

The coordination of products that contribute to a release is themaintenance of a bill of materials for a release. It is an inventory ofall software and hardware components that are related to a givenrelease. The development environment is directly affected by the ReleaseManagement strategy. The way a program decides to plan releases affectsthe complexity of the development environment. It should be noted thatdelivering a system in a series of releases significantly increases theeffort.

Standards and Procedures

If the release plan dictates that there will be parallel development oftwo releases of software, the development environment and configurationmanagement must be able to support the release plan. In the most generaldevelopment case, a program can have a single release capabilitymechanism 700 but must simultaneously perform maintenance activities 702for components that are in production 704. There must be an ability forthe program to design, build, and test the applications for production.FIG. 7 is an illustration showing a single release capabilitydevelopment pipeline in accordance with one embodiment of the presentinvention.

The ability to perform all development stages for a given release can bedefined as a development pipeline. The pipeline consists of alldevelopment and testing stages necessary to release the software toproduction.

The pipeline strategy of a program depends directly on the releasestrategy. A program is potentially developed on three differenttimelines;

Short term 800—production bug fixes

Middle term 802—production service packs

Long term 804—new releases of software

To support this release plan, the development environment must beseparated into pipelines that are replicas of a single migration path toproduction 704. A pipeline consists of all the necessary development andtesting stages required to deliver a piece of software to production.Therefore, because of simultaneous development and testing of three codebases, there needs to be three development and testing pipelines thatdeliver software to production.

The pipelines must be capable of allowing the developer to design,build, and test applications as well as architecture components. FIG. 8is an illustration showing a multiple release capability developmentpipeline in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention.

As can be derived from the above illustrations, the more flexible arelease plan, the more complex the development environment. As thenumber of development pipelines increase, the complexity of working inthe development environment also increases. All development environmenttools must support the pipelining strategy and so must the configurationmanagement and problem management processes. The pipeline strategy for aprogram must incorporate code base synchronization. Code basesynchronization must occur among the three pipelines to ensure that thethree code bases eventually result in one version in production. FIG. 9is an illustration showing a multiple release capability developmentpipeline with code base synchronization among three pipelines.Environment Management (266)

Since the development environment is a production environment, itfollows that environment management must be planned, organized, andexecuted to ensure a predictable and productive environment. The presentinvention can include a comprehensive framework for the Management OfDistributed Environments (MODE), describing four central functions:

Managing Change 220

Service Management 222

Service Planning 224

Systems Management 226

MODE provides an excellent framework for specifying the managementresponsibilities that apply to the development environment. Theseresponsibilities are often assigned to the technical group, but asdiscussed above, there are benefits associated with establishing adedicated environment management team.

The Environment Management component described here uses MODE as aframework, adopts MODE terminology, and focuses on those managementtasks, which are particularly important in the development environment.

Adopting a structured approach to environment management, which appliesthe same principles to development as it does to production, has severaladvantages:

High-quality support for developers

Significant experience with the operations management tools in anenvironment, which is generally smaller and which carries lower riskthan the full production environment

The ability to tune the environment management approach beforeproduction roll-out

In some respects, the development environment is simpler than theproduction environment. It is, for example, generally smaller in termsof the number of hardware components and the number of locations. Inother respects, however, the development environment is more complex.For example, the amount of change in this environment is generallyhigher than in the production environment. In fact, the environment canbe so fluid that extreme care must be taken to maintain control. On alarge engagement, one dedicated technical support person per tendesigners and programmers is recommended. The greatest need fortechnical support is generally during detailed design and programming.It is, however, necessary to start building the technical supportfunction before detailed design.

All processes that are performed by the Environment management team mustbe documented in a centralized database that allows quick and easyreference.

Service Management (222)

Service Management provides the interface between the EnvironmentManagement team, the Development teams, and external vendors or serviceproviders. It manages the level of service that is provided to thedevelopers. In order to maintain this service, three areas must bemanaged:

Management of Service Level Agreements (SLAs)

Management of Operations Level Agreements (OLAs)

Help Desk

Service Level Agreements

In order to plan and organize the development work appropriately, aService Level Agreement (SLA) must be in place between the ServiceManagement group (typically part of the Environment Management team) andthe developers. As with all other components of the developmentenvironment, this agreement should be kept simple. It should specify thefollowing:

The responsibility of the Environment Management team

How developers should request technical support

How quickly a request for support will be serviced

How the Environment Management team will notify developers ofenvironment changes such as changes to databases and common technicalmodules.

Specifications of service levels should be precise and the service mustbe measurable. The SLA should also specify how to measure this service(for example, system response times, request service times, backupfrequencies). In addition, the SLA must be managed. It may have to bemodified as the environment changes, and it must be reviewed withdevelopers on a regular basis to see if the service level is adequate.

a) Operations Level Agreement Management

The Environment Management team is responsible for providing thespecified level of service, but frequently relies on external vendorsand suppliers to perform certain tasks. For example, hardware service istypically provided by the hardware vendor. To provide the agreed levelof service to the developers, the Environment Management team mustensure that external vendors provide their services as required. Thisgenerally means establishing a contract with the vendor and following upthat the contract is respected.

As the relationship between the Environment Management team and externalvendors becomes less formalized (for example, Internet ServiceProviders, mass market software vendors), it becomes more difficult toprovide guarantees on the level of service that will be delivered.

b) Help Desk

The Help Desk function is an important part of the interface between theService Management group and the developers. The Help Desk makes surethat questions are answered and requests serviced in a timely manner bythe right people. In a complex, leading-edge environment, the Help Deskis crucial to maintaining productivity. The Help Desk needs particularfocus when:

The system software is immature

The development environment is weakly integrated

The environment is heterogeneous

The amount of newly released custom infrastructure is large

The developers are less experienced

While supervisors and coordinators who work with the developers mayalleviate the impact of these factors, the more difficult questions mustbe resolved by the Environment Management group. As some of these willbe repeat questions, the ability to log the question, the analysis, andthe result in a structured way provides the basis for performing smartsearches and answering the question quickly. Repeat questions may alsotrigger:

Additional training

Modifications of existing training

Additional entries in a “technical hints” database

Changes in tools, procedures, and responsibilities

Efficient searches in the Help Desk database can, in some cases, begreatly facilitated by extending the basic functionality of the HelpDesk tool. This can be achieved, for example, by adding a smart wordsearch capability on top of the Help Desk history database.

Comprehensive training must be given to Help Desk personnel in order toensure the best possible level of service to the developers.

In addition to serving internal project needs, the Help Desk must beprepared to coordinate the activities of external suppliers to solveproblems. This occurs when several new versions of hardware and systemsoftware are introduced, and compatibility issues arise. Part of thecoordination is the tracking of request IDs, which refer to the samequestion but which are assigned differently by each supplier.

To manage communication with external vendors, a contacts database withthe following information is useful:

Company name

Products supplied

Details on support arrangements

Address, phone and fax numbers

Main contact

Secondary contacts

Regional office address/fax/phone/contacts

World headquarters address/fax/phone/contacts

Based on this information, it is useful to log the exchanges with theexternal company, indicating:

Date

Individuals involved

Key information exchanged

c) Quality Management

Defining the SLA, with its specific, measurable criteria, is the basisfor continuous improvement. The continuous improvement effort may focuson providing the same level of service with fewer resources, or onproviding better service. An important part of quality management isensuring that the Environment Management team understands the keyperformance indicators for service delivery, that these indicators aremonitored, and that all personnel are adequately equipped with the toolsand training to fill their responsibilities. While the entire team isresponsible for delivering quality, the responsibility for Qualitymanagement should be assigned to a specific individual on theEnvironment Management team.

Systems Management (226)

MODE divides Systems Management into:

Production control

Monitoring

Failure control

Security management

Staffing considerations

Production Control

In the development environment, a number of activities must be performedaccording to schedule, including:

Reorganization of databases, including the repository

Rerunning of database statistics

Performing backups

Transportation of backups off-site

Performing periodical file transfers between environments/sites

Preventive maintenance of equipment

Many of these activities can be scheduled and performed automatically,but must have some level of manual control to ensure that they areexecuted correctly. Control tasks may include checking and archivingactivity logs. Standards and procedures that describe the controlfunction must be established.

Monitoring

The Environment Management team must systematically monitor thedevelopment environment to ensure that it is stable, provides adequateresponse times, and satisfies the needs of the developers. Thismonitoring involves looking at trends and extrapolating them toanticipate problems with disk capacity, system performance, networktraffic, and so forth.

Failure Control

Failures must often be corrected quickly to restore service. The timeneeded to restore service is affected by the time it takes to isolateand repair the fault. In many cases, elapsed time can be shortened byallowing remote administration of system components.

Security Management

Security management involves:

Defining security requirements

Preventing security breaches

Limiting the effect of security breaches

Detecting security breaches

Correcting the effect of security breaches

Although direct sabotage is rare, inexperienced developers, perhaps newto the project, can wreak havoc to the system under development byinadvertently deleting or modifying system components. Focus must be ondefining access rights so that developers have the right level of access(read/write) to all the information that is useful and relevant to theirwork.

With the opportunity to connect development environments to the internetcomes new risks. There is a potential for security breaches or thetransfer of viruses and other malicious programs. In extreme situations,where security is of great importance, it may be prudent to isolate thedevelopment environment, and allow Internet access only via a dial-upconnection on stand-alone machines. The overlap of responsibility forSecurity Management between the Environment Management team and theSecurity Management team will need to be defined at the program level.

Outsourcing Considerations

In the development environment, it may be possible to outsource certainSystems Management tasks. For example, the LAN supplier may be willingto take responsibility for LAN support, upgrades, and so on. Similarly,an existing data processing center may be willing to take responsibilityfor host operations. Such agreements are very beneficial and make itpossible to use project team members more effectively. However,outsourcing the development environment carries a risk, which can bemitigated by defining a Service Level Agreement with the provider. Thiswill generally be very similar to the SLA established between theEnvironment Management team and the developers. One important differenceis that punitive measures (to be applied if the SLA is not respected)must be specified to ensure that outside suppliers are stronglymotivated to abide by the agreement.

Service Planning (224)

MODE divides Service Planning into:

Service Management Planning

Systems Management Planning

Managing Change Planning

Strategic Planning

All these planning stages apply in the development environment and areanalogous to the kind of planning that must occur in the businessapplication's production environment. One of the most important successfactors when providing technical support is being proactive andanticipating the need for intervention.

Service Management Planning

Once the SLA is defined, the resources required for delivering theservice can be specified. Questions to address include the staffing ofthese resources and training to ensure that they are equipped to deliverservice as agreed.

Systems Management Planning

Daily tasks must be specified, assigned, and followed up. Systemsmanagement planning determines who is responsible and how follow-up isperformed.

Managing Change Planning

Managing change planning is of great importance in the developmentenvironment. During a large project, several very significant changes tothe development environment must be accommodated. They include:

New hardware

Rewiring of the network

New development software

New releases of existing development software

New releases of infrastructure components (custom-built technologyarchitecture)

The release of these components into the environment requires verycareful planning to ensure minimal disruption for developers. Techniquescommonly used include:

Fallback options if a new component does not function as planned

Partial rollout to a sub-team to limit the consequences if a componentdoes not work as planned

Ample information to developers about timeframes for rollout andexpected effects of new components

Well planned testing

Sufficient training for new tools or changes to existing tools

Planning for change includes choosing options based on a thoroughunderstanding of the positive and negative impacts of change to theenvironment. Changes to the development environments should be analyzedand planned for as orderly releases rather than a stream of smallmodifications. Changes should be packaged into releases, and each newrelease of the development environment should be tested by developing asmall, but representative part of the system using the new environment.Ideally, this test should be performed by real developers rather than bythe Environment Management team. This may be very helpful in order toobtain better buy-in.

Strategic Planning

Strategic planning is traditionally regarded as being less important ina development environment than in the production environment, mainlybecause the development environment is often viewed as a temporaryentity that does not warrant serious strategic considerations. This maybe changing however, with the concept of the enterprise-wide developmentenvironment—a single, generic development environment architecture thatis tailored to each specific project. In this case, strategic planningfor the development environment is vitally important if the environmentis to evolve, and allow the organization to remain competitive.Strategic planning of the environment management function may, forexample, include such questions as support for multi-site developmentand coordination of multi-sourced systems management.

Managing Change (220)

The development environment is subject to constant change (for example,the addition of new tools, or changes to code libraries), which needs tobe managed carefully. The Managing Change component comprises threesub-components: Controlling Change, Testing Change, and ImplementingChange.

Controlling Change

After planning for and scheduling change, it must be controlled. Thisties in closely with Configuration Management (seeProcesses—Configuration Management).

Testing Change

Thorough testing is required to reduce the risk of productivity loss dueto environment changes. Techniques commonly used include:

Careful scheduling of events to minimize disruptions (typically weekendsand evenings are used to enable a strictly controlled test of newcomponents released to the design and construction environment).

Rigorous testing of Environment Management tools themselves. This testmust be as rigorous as the testing of the execution environment.

A hardware and systems software acceptance test environment wherecomponents from external suppliers are validated before the component isaccepted into the environment.

One or more separate architecture build and test environments where newor modified custom-built components can be thoroughly verified beforethey are made available.

In addition to reducing risk, testing should also verify that theexpected positive benefits of the change are indeed obtained.

Implementing Change

After planning and testing the change to be introduced, it must beimplemented. The most common kinds of change in the developmentenvironment are the introduction of additional hardware, new releases ofdatabases, subroutines and infrastructure, and upgrades to tools. Eachchange implementation should be viewed as continuous improvement so thatany difficulties or inefficiencies are analyzed and resultingimprovements are planned and implemented. To be effective over time,this requires that procedures be documented and regularly reviewed andenhanced.

When the database is changed, new versions of test-data must bedeveloped and distributed. When infrastructure components are modified,they may have to be distributed across platforms, and the ripple-effects(for example, the need for recompilation or code changes in affectedcomponents) must be understood and coordinated. Some projects haveexperimented with incentives to ensure that the infrastructurecomponents do not change too frequently. One such strong incentive is tomake the Architecture team responsible for all ripple effects and havethem implement all the application level changes that result from anarchitecture modification.

Problem Management (272)

Problem Management is generally associated with the discrepancies thatresult from the testing process, though it may also be applied to themanagement of design problems detected during verification or validationsteps. Problem Management is a crucial process in the system developmentlife cycle. It ensures that quality software is designed, developed, andtested so that initial benefits defined in the business case are in factrealized. A development environment must have a formally defined problemmanagement process to ensure that this objective is met.

Formal problem tracking helps to control the analysis and design processby maintaining documentation of all problems and their solutions.Problem tracking improves communication between developers and businessrepresentatives, which is particularly helpful in minimizingmisunderstandings at later stages of the development cycle.

Such formal problem tracking also helps to facilitate the solutionprocess by formalizing a procedure for reviewing, acting on, and solvingproblems in a timely manner. By circulating problem documentation to allaffected parties, management can minimize the risk of misunderstandingsat a later date. In addition, the documentation serves as an audit trailto justify design and implementation decisions.

It is, however, important to note that not only the software that isdeveloped for business case benefits realization must have a formalproblem tracking mechanism, but the development environment architecturemust also have a formal problem tracking mechanism. The developmentenvironment tools and processes support the design, development,testing, and delivery of quality software. Therefore, the foundations ofdesign, build, and test must be stable and problem free. All problemsidentified in the development environment architecture must be trackedformally and solved as the development environment is also a productionenvironment for developers.

System Building (278)

Understanding the systems building process is important since welldefined development tasks and workflows form the basis for achievinghigh productivity and consistent process quality. Tools to support theseprocesses may be found in Tools—System Building.

The development environment varies by segment of a systems developmentproject. The following model is used when discussing differentcomponents of the development environment.

The development process is iterative and can be entered at differentstages depending on the complexity of the changes. Small corrections maynot require explicit design, and small enhancements may not require anyhigh-level design. The shaded, elliptical labels in the above figureindicate how the development process can be entered depending on themagnitude of the change.

The iterative nature of the development process is important since itimplies that components of the development environment, which are put inplace for design (for example), must be maintained, since they willcontinue to be used until the end of system test and beyond. Multiplereleases of the business application may also be under concurrentdevelopment at different stages. This may lead to very active use ofdesign, construction, and testing tools at the same time.

Analysis & Design (228)

Analysis and design in this context, refer to the two BusinessIntegration Methodology activities:

Design Application

Design Technology Infrastructure

The most critical and perhaps the most difficult work occurs up front.The success of the entire design effort depends on the quality of thework performed to gather, document, communicate, and analyzerequirements in the early stages. Standards for how to document theserequirements are very important. They facilitate communication, which,in turn, ensures a common view of the problem to be solved.Communication must be ensured within the analysis team but also with the(possibly future) designers and programmers.

Tool support may help enforce standards, and such tools are discussedunder Tools—System Building—Analysis & Design (below).

The design process includes numerous activities, which range fromhigh-level general considerations to low-level detailed issues. Theoverall objective of design is to transform functional and technicalspecifications into a blueprint of the system, one that will effectivelyguide construction and testing. While requirements analysis andspecification deals with what the system must do, design addresses howthe system will be constructed. Validating that the design actuallymeets the requirements for functionality, performance, reliability, andusability is essential.

The quality of the design process directly affects the magnitude of theefforts required to construct and test the system, as well as themaintenance effort. Investments in defining high-quality designstandards and procedures and integrating tools is therefore particularlyimportant. It may, for example, have a direct impact on the degree ofreuse achieved. In addition, adequate training mugt be provided toensure that the designers make optimal use of the environment provided.

Information on how to approach system design can be found in thefollowing Andersen Consulting sources:

Delivery Vehicle Frameworks (see Technology Library)

Network-Centric Architecture Framework (see Technology Library)

The Graphical User Interface Design Guidelines (see Technology Library)

Design Application Architecture (see ENACTS MKB database)

New tools and processes link detailed design and construction moreclosely than before. To realize the expected benefits from repositoriesand code generation, the output from detailed design must be exact andcorrect, leaving little room for interpretation. This requires carefulquality control and very specific exit criteria associated with thecompletion of detailed design.

It is important that the development environment accommodates concurrenteffort in different areas. For example, parts of design may occur aftersystem test starts, as in the case of an urgent change request, or whena significant inconsistency is detected in system test. Some reverseengineering work may also occur before design or during construction.

When standards, procedures, and tools are developed for a task, it isimportant to consider where the task belongs in the sequence of tasksthat contribute to the development. For example, the use of a repositoryearly in the development process reduces the need for re-enteringinformation while enhancing consistency and facilitating standardscompliance.

Usability and User Interface Design

Usability is an important (and often overlooked) consideration in systemdesign. Usability is more than a well-designed user interface—the way inwhich business processes are modeled, how they are implemented withinthe system, and how they are presented to the user all contribute to theoverall usability of the system. Usability is an iterative process ofrefinement that results in systems that are easy to learn, efficient,and enjoyable. In the very broadest sense, usability is the thoughtful,deliberate design approach that considers users throughout thesolutions-building process, from start to finish. For this reason,usability guidelines should be defined and followed at every stage ofsystem design. This, along with regular usability reviews and tests bothinternally, and by target user groups (by using prototypes), helps toreduce the risk of a poorly received system.

The User Interface has become increasingly important as systems becomemore and more user-facing. As multimedia technologies evolve allowingthe development of richer user interfaces, so the design processes mustadapt to reflect these new technologies. The processes that surround thedesign of media content are similar to that of regular system design,and many of the same issues that apply to designing traditional userinterfaces also apply to the design of media content. The major changeis the involvement of media content designers—a group of people nottraditionally associated with system design and development. As theirpresence is relatively new to the scene of systems development, it isoften the case that media content designers are not fully integratedinto the development team—a potentially costly mistake. It is importantto ensure that media content designers are involved in the designprocess at a very early stage, and that they are fully integrated intothe application design and construction teams.

The approach to Interface design is evolving as media technologiesbecome more advanced. Modem media creation tools allow the developmentof not only media-rich interfaces, but also the functionality that liesbehind them. This means that the role of the media content designer maynow range from that of designing the look and feel of a user interface,to developing the entire presentation layer of an application. In thissituation, the role division between media designer and applicationdeveloper becomes a difficult one to define, reinforcing the argumentfor fully integrating media designers into the application developmentteam.

Standards and Procedures

Well documented, comprehensive standards make designers more independentand enable them to produce more consistent, high quality designs. Commonstandards include:

Detailed specifications of deliverables from each design step

Window and report design standards

Naming standards for design objects and documents

Navigation standards

Standards that specify the design techniques to use

Documentation standards that specify format

Technology infrastructure design standards that specify how to ensuresecurity, handle errors, and manipulate context data

While the standards focus on what to do during design, procedures focuson how to do it. Procedures must be in place to specify:

How to resolve functional and technical issues

Which tools to use and how to use them

How to perform design validation

When and how to initiate and perform functional and technical designreviews

How to cope with design teams distributed across locations*

Guidelines give assistance in areas where judgment is important andwhere standards are not easy to define. Valuable guidelines may include:

Usability guidelines

Style guidelines

Guidelines on how to use a tool effectively

Sample design packet for each kind of system component to be designed

Designers must understand standards and procedures other than the oneslisted above. For example, repository related standards are veryimportant to designers. These standards are discussed inProcesses—Information Management (above).

Implementation Considerations

a) Multi-site Development

In the case of systems being developed by multiple parties or acrossmultiple locations, it is vital that a process of regular communicationis implemented. This communication should involve all the partiesinvolved in the design of the system, and is usually conducted in theform of an audio conference (see Tools—Collaboration). Through thisprocess, it must be ensured that all parties are approaching problemsfrom the same direction, and that they are thinking about the design inthe same way. If this is not achieved, there is great potential formisunderstanding across teams, which generally leads to a badlyintegrated system. In this type of situation, where parties are notworking together on a day to day basis, it is also important that anydefinition (requirements or design) is completely free of ambiguity (ifanything is left open to interpretation, there is a high risk that itwill be misinterpreted). Practically, this means that quality controlson documentation need to be more stringent than on a traditionalsingle-site project.

Reverse Engineering (230)

Reverse Engineering is a set of techniques used to assist in reusingexisting system components. Most of the time, this work is performedmanually: one person studies thick listings to understand data layoutsand processing rules. The person gradually builds a higher-levelunderstanding of how the components work and interact, effectivelyreverse engineering the system into a conceptual model. It may benecessary to study certain pieces of code to understand how they work,but reverse engineering is not limited to code. For example, thesetechniques might help understand the data-model of a legacy application,in order to better design the new applications that will coexist withit.

The process can be very time-consuming and is notoriously difficult toestimate. Tools to support the effort do exist, and have been usedsuccessfully to streamline the process. The main problem with suchtools, however, is the hasty (and erroneous) conclusion that toolsautomate everything. They do not, just as design tools do not automatethe design process. Human intelligence is still required to drive theeffort.

The supporting tools can, however, reduce the amount of manual effortneeded and significantly lessen the amount of non value-addedactivities, such as “find all the places in a program that affect thevalue of a given variable”.

The goal of a specific reverse engineering effort generally falls intoone of the following categories:

To determine which parts of existing systems must be replaced and whichcan be reused

To determine how a particular component works in order to design othercomponents that interface with it

To extract components for reuse

To prepare for cleaning up those parts of a system that will be retained

In component-based development, a concept known as “round-tripreengineering” provides the developer with a way of modifying acomponent model and generating the code, then at a later date modifyingthe code at predefined locations in the source code and regenerating,thus enabling the model to maintain a 2-way-syncronization.

Note that components to be reverse engineered can be both part of acustom-built system, or part of a software package.

Projects dealing with the Year 2000 issues have had much experience inreengineering.

Standards and Procedures

The following reverse engineering guidelines should be used as inputwhen developing standards and procedures for a particular context.

Reverse engineering can provide important input both to the designprocess and to the construction process. Timing of the activities istherefore important.

The interplay between design and reverse engineering can be intricate: ahigh-level design is needed to determine which components from existingsystems are of interest. Once this is determined, these components canbe extracted, generalized, and fed into the detailed design process asone source of information.

The value of reuse will vary with the functional and technical qualityof the code.

It may be useful to clean up existing code before it is extracted forreuse.

Tools should be chosen based on knowledge of the system, the amount ofcode to be processed, and the experience of the personnel involved.

The end should be kept in mind. With powerful tools, it may be temptingto “investigate for fun” rather than extracting what is needed.

As with all other tools, adequate training is important.

Packaged Component Integration (232)

Packaged Component Integration applies to the use of any third party (orpreviously developed) technical components that may be integrated intothe target system. This can range from simple components offeringlimited functionality (worksheet or charting GUI components), tocomponents handling a significant portion of the applicationarchitecture (data access components and firewalls). The processinvolves a number of stages:

Package or Component Selection

Component Customization

Component Interfacing

See Tools—System Building—Packaged Component Integration for moredetails.

Standards and Procedures

A proven practice in the component-based development world, when dealingwith purchased components, is to “wrap” them, i.e. encapsulate them sothat the visible piece of any component remains fully controlled. Thisway, when a component is replaced (either for an update or because ithas proved to be defective), no other system components that refer tothat component will need to be altered.

Construction (234)

Construction covers both generation of source code and other componentsas well as programming and unit test. It may also involve help textcreation and string test. As construction is a large part of systembuilding, the benefits of streamlining this process are significant.Since several aspects of construction are rather mechanical, it is oftenfairly easy to simplify this process and to automate parts of it,particularly if the design holds high quality.

The arrival of Integrated Development Environments (IDEs), has furthersimplified the automation of construction processes to the degree that asingle tool can manage the majority of the process.

As with Analysis and Design, usability must not be ignored in theconstruction of a system. Especially in the case of an iterativedevelopment approach, it is vital that those responsible for usabilityand target user groups are involved in regular reviews as the system isbeing developed.

Standards and Procedures

Important standards include:

Programming standards for each programming language, includingprocedural languages, job control languages, and data access languages

Test documentation standards

Important procedures include:

Code generation procedures, including pre-processing of the code shelland post-processing of the generated code

Testing procedures

Test-data handling and common test-data usage

Procedures for functional and technical reviews

Code review checklist

Migration procedures which specify how to make common modules public

Important guidelines include:

Usability guidelines

Shell usage guidelines

Tools usage guidelines

Test (236)

System test is performed to validate that the gathering andtransformation of information is complete and correct.

As automation progresses and an increasing number of business processesare supported by computer systems, system test is changing in nature.Firstly, the testing of interfaces to other systems is becoming an everlarger part of systems test. Secondly, system test increasingly appliesto a new release of an existing system. In addition, it is worth notingthat as design and construction is increasingly automated, system testis becoming a larger part of the total development effort.

Both of these factors increase the value of automated testing tools,given that the work associated with checking that system changes do nothave unintended side-effects, is becoming an ever larger part of systemtest. Another trend affecting system test is the demand fortraceability. Increasingly, users and management wish to know thepurpose of a given test condition. This is answered by referring back tothe design and to user requirements.

System test is a very large part of any systems development effort andcan, especially when requirements are changing, exceed one third of theentire effort. A streamlined environment, which enables highproductivity is therefore of utmost importance.

IMPORTANT: When planning system test, it is vital that the testing ofall target platforms is included in the test plan. For each platformthat is supported by the system, there must be a separate set of tests.

The necessity of impact of volume and stress testing early in thedevelopment process is becoming more common, due to the proliferation ofnew technologies and tools which have little or no performance trackrecord. It is important that the performance and reliability of suchtools and technologies is established as early as possible in theproject to avoid possible problems further down the line.

Component-based development may have an impact on the way in whichtesting should be performed.

Standards and Procedures

System test relies heavily on configuration management, repositorymanagement, and quality management.

Configuration management provides the basis for promoting aconfiguration from the construction environment to the system testenvironment. As test cycles are run and fixes implemented, migration canbecome complex, requiring flexible mechanisms for locking and unlockingsystem components and analyzing the impacts of change.

Information management, and in particular repository management,guarantees a correct view of the interrelationships between systemcomponents. This is required to ensure that impact analyses are completeand correct, which, in turn, makes for effective regression testing.

Quality management, together with well-defined standards and procedures,ensures that the outputs from each test activity are documented at theright level of detail and fed back to the design and construction teams,in accordance with the quality plan.

Each of the following system test activities needs well-documentedstandards and procedures and should be supported by tools:

Promote configuration (migrate configurations from the constructionenvironment to the system test environment)

Run test cycle

Compare expected results and actual results

Log System Investigation Requests (SIRs)

Analyze deviations and identify components requiring change (eitherexpected results, test-data, or system components)

Define Change Requests (CRs) and perform impact analysis

Package those change requests that affect the same areas and thatnaturally belong together, into change packages

Schedule and staff the changes

Unlock components for change

Perform changes and refine impact analysis based on added understanding

Verify changes before re-submitting to system test

Migrate to system test based on updated impact analysis and re-lockcomponents

See the Andersen Consulting V-model for more information.

Implementation Considerations

a) Where can I find information about the Reinventing Testing Project(RTP)?

b) What model of testing does the firm follow?

The following is an overview of the firm's testing methodology asdocumented by RTP. It describes the framework for the testing process,or the V-model of verification, validation, and testing.

c) Are program specifications being tested?

The following is an overview of the component test as documented by RTP.It describes the testing methods used to validate the detailed designstage where program specifications are tested.

Component Test—A component test is the testing of an individual piece ofthe solution. All components, including application programs, conversionprograms, and input/output modules, are subject to component test. Theobjective is to ensure that the component implements the programspecifications. At the end of component test, all lines of code shouldhave been exercised, keeping in mind the specified functional andquality requirements.

d) Are systems design being tested?

The following is an overview of the assembly test as documented by RTP.It describes the testing methods used to validate the technical designstage where system designs are tested.

Assembly Test—The assembly test tests the interaction of relatedcomponents to ensure that the components, when integrated, functionproperly. Assembly test ensures that data is passed correctly betweenscreens in a conversation or batch process and that messages are passedcorrectly between a client and a server. The specification tested is thetechnical design. The application flow diagram within the technicaldesign depicts the assemblies, either on-line conversations or batchassemblies, that will be assembly tested. Testing is therefore organizedby assembly rather than by business function.

By the completion of assembly testing, the system should be technicallysound, and data flow throughout the system should be correct. Componentand assembly testing ensures that all transactions, database updates,and conversation flows function accurately. Testing in later stages willconcentrate on user requirements and business processes, including workflow.

e) Are benefits being tested?

f) Are costs being tested?

g) Are intangibles being tested?

The following is an overview of the benefits realization test asdocumented by RTP. It describes the testing methods used to validate thebusiness case stage where benefits, costs, and other intangibles aretested.

Benefits Realization Test—The benefits realization test tests that thebusiness case for the system will be met. The emphasis here is onmeasuring the benefits of the new system, for example: increasedproductivity, decreased lead times, or lower error rates. If thebusiness case is not testable, the benefits realization test becomesmore of a buyer signoff.

Ideally, benefits realization test occurs prior to complete deploymentof the system and utilizes the same environment that was used for theservice-level test piece of operational readiness test. Tools are put inplace to collect data to prove the business case (e.g., count customercalls). A team of people to monitor the reports from the tools and provethat the business case is achieved is still needed. The size of the teamdepends upon the number of users and the degree to which tools cancollect and report the data. The benefits realization test tests thatthe business case for the system will be met. The emphasis here is onmeasuring the benefits of the new system, for example: increasedproductivity, decreased lead times, or lower error rates. If thebusiness case is not testable, the benefits realization test becomesmore of a buyer signoff.

h) Are quality requirements being tested?

i) Are technical requirements being tested?

j) Are functional/user requirements being tested?

The following is an overview of the product and operational readinesstest as documented by the RTP. It describes the testing methods used tovalidate the requirement/definition stage where quality, technical andfunctional/user requirements are tested.

The Product Test—The product test tests the entire application to ensurethat all functional and quality requirements have been met. Producttesting may occur at multiple levels. The first level tests assemblieswithin an application. The next level tests applications within asystem, and a final level tests systems within a solution. Within themultiple levels, the purpose is the same.

The product test tests the actual functionality of the solution as itsupports the user requirements: the various cycles of transactions, theresolution of suspense items, the work flow within organizational unitsand among these units. The specification against which the product testis run includes all functional and quality requirements. The testing isorganized by business function.

The Operational Readiness Test—The objective of the operationalreadiness test is to ensure that the application can be correctlydeployed. The operational readiness test is also commonly known as thereadiness test, roll-out test, release test, or the conversion test. Theoperational readiness test becomes especially key in client/serverenvironments. It has four parts:

Roll out test—ensures that the roll out procedures and programs caninstall the application in the production environment.

Operations test—ensures that all operational procedures are in place andacceptable, and that the production system can be operated by thepersonnel responsible for supporting production.

Service level test—ensures that once the application is rolled out, itprovides the level of service to the users as specified in the ServiceLevel Agreement (SLA).

Roll out verification—ensures that the application has been correctlyrolled out at each site. This test, developed by the work cell or teamperforming operational readiness test, should be executed during eachsite installation by the work cell or team in charge of the actual rollout of the application.

The operational readiness test assumes a completely stable applicationand architecture in order for it to be successful, and therefore, isheavily reliant on the previous testing stages.

The operational readiness test is the point in the development processwhere all the application development, architecture development, andpreparation tasks come together. The operational readiness test ensuresthat the application and architecture can be installed and operated inorder to meet the SLA.

Development Tools Framework

FIG. 10 is an illustration showing a Development Tools Framework inaccordance with one embodiment of the present invention. The developmentenvironment is built upon an integrated set of tools and components,each supporting a specific task or set of tasks in the developmentprocess. As with processes and organization, the central component,System Building, is supported by the eight management components:

Information Management tools 262 manage the information that supportsthe entire project—information that is used both in systems building andin other management processes

Security Management tools 276 enable the development of securitycomponents

Quality Management tools 264 support all quality management processes

Program and Project Management tools 274 assist the management teams intheir daily work

Environment Management tools 266 provide the facilities to maintain thedevelopment environment

Release Management tools 278 manages the simultaneous development ofmultiple releases

Configuration Management tools 270 cover the version control, migrationcontrol and change control of system components such as code and itsassociated documentation

Problem Management tools 272 pertains to the problem tracking andsolution process

In addition, three other components are required to fully supportdevelopment:

Productivity tools 1002 provide the basic functionality required tocreate documents, spreadsheets, and simple graphics or diagrams

Collaborative tools 1004 enable groups of people to communicate and toshare information, helping them work together effectively, regardless oflocation

Process Integration tools 1006 enforce the correct sequencing of tasksand tools in conformance with a pre-defined methodology

An efficient development environment requires good tools. For generalissues regarding tool selection, please refer to the general ProductSelection Considerations.

Productivity (1002)

While many tools are developed in order to support a specific task (forexample, source code editor), there is a family of tools that aregenerally required across the board, often known as productivity toolsor office automation tools. These tools, typically packaged asintegrated suites of software, provide the basic functionality requiredto create documents, spreadsheets, and simple graphics or diagrams. Morerecently, the ability to access the Internet and browse electronicdocumentation has been added to the suite of productivity tools.

Specifically, productivity tools include:

Spreadsheet

Word Processor

Graphics Editor

Personal Organizer (may be linked to Group Scheduling)

Methodology Browser

Internet Access

These tools are generally versatile enough to take the place ofspecialized tools (such as planning tools) in certain circumstances.

Implementation Considerations

a) How secure does the development environment need to be?

In environments where security is a factor, the way in which teammembers gain access to the Internet must be carefully considered. Forexample, on high security projects, it is often the case that isolatedmachines with a single dial-up connection provide the only way to accessthe Internet, thus ensuring that the development environment remainscompletely isolated.

b) Are people using the Internet for its intended use?

Studies have shown that employees spend a lot of time using theirInternet access for purposes unrelated to work. Therefore, the benefitsand damages of providing Internet access must be assessed.

Collaboration (1004)

It is well understood that both good communication and knowledge sharingare vital for the success of any team. As development projects getbigger and teams more distributed, it becomes increasingly difficult tomaintain communication between project team members. Collaborative toolshave been developed with this very purpose in mind—to enable groups ofpeople to communicate and to share information, helping them worktogether effectively, regardless of location.

Implementation Considerations

a) How distributed are the project teams?

On projects with development sites that are geographically distributed,it is usually the case that communication by e-mail alone is not asufficient substitute for meetings when attempting to coordinate theteams involved. In order to keep all teams updated and moving in thesame direction, regular (for example, weekly) conference calls betweenall parties—chaired by project management—is much more efficient. It isimportant that these conference calls are closely monitored, wellprepared, and that the agenda is closely followed. Action points andcommitments made during these calls must also be documented. Whereissues arise that cannot be resolved using an audio conference (usuallybecause the subject is based on a visual concept), video conferencingmay be necessary.

E-Mail (238)

E-mail provides the capability of sending and receiving messageselectronically. In addition to the ability to send simple ASCII text,e-mail systems usually provide the capability to attach binary files tomessages. E-mail is a convenient tool for distributing information to agroup of people, as it has the advantage of delivering content directlyto the ‘mailbox’ of each individual, rather than relying on individualsto access a central data repository in order to retrieve theinformation.

Implementation Considerations

a) Is e-mail likely to contain sensitive information?

When setting up an e-mail system, it is important to consider thecontent that will be transferred using the system and to apply theappropriate security controls accordingly.

Is communication outside the local environment necessary?

Is remote access required?

If so, a gateway will be required to manage communication beyond thelocal environment. This will bring with it security implications, as thelocal environment will no longer be isolated.

b) Do e-mail capabilities already exist at the development site?

If adequate capabilities are already present at the development site, itmay well be prudent to take advantage of these capabilities.

Product Considerations

a) Is e-mail to be supported on multiple platforms?

The choice of which product to use may depend on the platforms uponwhich the system must run.

b) How many people should the system support?

Low-end e-mail solutions may be perfectly adequate for small developmentteams.

Teamware (240)

In a creative environment, it is vitally important that people are ableto easily share ideas and information. Teamware provides the ability tocapture and share information across a project through the use ofcommon-access, structured databases. A good example of teamware is theKnowledge Xchange. Teamware may be used to share many different types ofinformation, for example:

Technical support requests

Technical hints, which facilitate trouble-shooting

Change requests

Resource reservation (for example, meeting rooms)

Standards and procedures

Status reports/meeting minutes

Project member availability

Project events and milestones

Functional and technical issues

Suggestions

Project methodology

In order to guarantee the value of a teamware environment, it is vitalthat:

Consistency is maintained

Relevant updates are made (including deletions)

Storage is not abused

Security is enforced

To ensure that information is consistent across different formats, it isuseful to view the management of all these information sources as partof a more general information management process. Effective informationmanagement beyond repository management is required to ensure that theanticipated benefits of electronic mail and teamware materialize.

For example, certain teamware databases require continuous maintenancein order to remain relevant. The management of the database contents mayrequire significantly more work than either the initial installation ofthe tools or the technical support for the tools. This effort isfrequently underestimated.

In addition to setting guidelines for general usage, the project mustdesignate mail administrators and knowledge managers who are responsiblefor:

Maintaining user accounts

Maintaining security profiles

Managing database contents

Removing obsolete information

Managing resource usage (for example, disk space)

Implementation Considerations

a) What size is the project team?

Teamware will generally only be effective when used within large groupsof people. Unless a critical mass of people is achieved and content isregularly added to the system, interest will soon dwindle, and thesystem will no longer be of any value.

Group Scheduling (242)

Group scheduling tools help to centrally manage the personal schedulesof a group of people. This offers the advantage of being able tocoordinate events that require the participation of a number of peopleautomatically by checking ‘group availability’ rather than checking witheach person individually. These tools may also be used to schedule otherresources such as meeting rooms and equipment. For the use of groupscheduling tools to be successful, the personal schedules of each memberof the group must always be current. This is the responsibility not onlyof the group scheduler, but also of the individuals involved.

Audio/Video Conference (244)

In an ideal world, all meetings would be conducted face to face. Inreality, however, it is often the case that not all the individuals whoare required to take part in a meeting are on the same site. To overcomethis problem, audio and video conferencing tools allow many individualsin different locations to communicate simultaneously. Audio conferencingis not a new concept, but remains a valuable tool for conductingmeetings where the issues being discussed do not require the support ofvisual aids. Video conferencing takes this one step further, allowingpeople to interact both aurally and visually, making for a much richermethod of communication.

Implementation Considerations

a) Is there enough bandwidth to support a video conferencing system?

Adding bandwidth intensive applications such as audio, video, and dataconferencing could have severe effects on the network infrastructure andthis must be anticipated. This type of implementation is also based on anumber of different, emerging standards. The video conferencing systemshould be designed with that fact in mind and provide for some degree ofinteroperability between dissimilar systems. For example, being able toconnect a desktop-based video conference user with a room-based videoconference user.

b) Is video conferencing the right medium for the desired purpose?

Video conferencing is an advantage when one person needs to see theother person's face, his or her reactions, read body-language, buildrelationships, and so on. On the other hand, when communication is moretechnical, for example, fixing a bug, collaborative design, documentwriting, or presenting a demonstration, it is more critical to be ableto see what the other person is seeing, or to be able to showinformation at hand. In this case, application sharing assumes greaterimportance. It is a common misconception that video conferencingreplaces working in the same place. The logistics involved in setting upa group video conference for different time zones, and the complexity ofsharing a common whiteboard, limit the value of the solution tooccasional situations. In a development environment, the real value ofsynchronous communication is not in being able to see someone else atthe other end, it is in being able to share a working session on a workobject (see Collaboration—Shared Workspace, below).

Shared Workspace (246)

Shared workspace systems may be categorized as follows:

Electronic whiteboarding

Application sharing

Electronic whiteboarding

An electronic whiteboard provides a large, clear screen that can beviewed close up and at a wide angle, upon which participants may ‘write’with an infrared pen or a mouse. Images may also be pasted onto thewhiteboard. Regular workstations on a network may also be used forelectronic whiteboarding, providing the appropriate software isinstalled. Electronic whiteboarding often works in conjunction withvideo conferencing applications.

Application sharing

Application sharing allows participants to see and control the sameapplication running on multiple PCs. In this way they can simultaneouslycreate and edit a single, common file. Application sharing may becombined with audio conference.

Process Management (1006)

Process Management may be categorized into two areas:

Simple process integration 248, which concerns the simple integration ofa sequence of tasks, according to a prescribed development methodology.

Workflow management 250, which concerns more sophisticated situationswhere several complex processes require the participation of multiplegroups.

In either situation, the aim of the process management tools is toenforce the correct sequencing of tasks and tools. Task integration mustbe provided in accordance with the methodology and should provide directsupport for the methodology. Effective task integration thereforereduces the need to consult the methodology.

Simple Process Integration (248)

Simple Process Integration concerns the integration of a limitedsequence of tasks, for an individual, according to a prescribeddevelopment methodology. For example, the construction process can besupported within an integrated development environment tool by a menuwith the following choices:

Generate module template

Generate windows and dialogs

Edit code

Compile

Link

Edit test plan

Generate testdata

Execute test with debug

Execute test without debug

Edit script

Compare results

The sequencing of the menu items help to remind the programmer of thesteps needed to complete the construction of the program.

Going beyond mere sequential use of tools, real-time integration oftools enables real-time data interchange. The most common example isperhaps the edit/compile/debug cycle. Here it can be very helpful towork in an integrated environment that uses the editor and places thecursor at the position corresponding to a syntax error or to a givenbreak-point defined to the debugger. This integration is generallyoffered as a standard feature of an integrated development environment.Task integration for the individual can be achieved using scriptingtools or a desk top manager.

Real-time tools integration is most commonly provided by vendors whodeliver integrated environments.

Workflow Management (250)

When processes become complex and require the participation of multiplegroups, simple integration techniques are not adequate for managing theprocess flow. Workflow Management tools address this problem byproviding the ability to define, manage, and execute automated businessprocesses through an electronic representation of the process, both interms of what has to be done, and by whom. For any process wheremultiple groups are involved, well-defined procedures must be in placeto ensure that work flows from one task to another. Each participantmust have access to the information required to perform the task,including the information from previous steps in the flow. This can behandled manually or supported by tools. If handled manually, it requiresdedication, attention to detail, and significant training.

Workflow Management can be applied to many processes within thedevelopment environment, such as quality assurance, migration,design/construction, system test, and standards development.

Implementation Considerations

Efficient tools support for Workflow Management requires standards andprocedures that specify:

Which tasks exist

Expected and maximal duration of each task

What the decision points are

How the tasks fit together to form a workflow

How work is routed depending on the nature of the case/issue

Which roles exist

Which roles can perform which tasks

Which individuals can fill which roles

Priority of cases (for example, depending on the originator)

Product Considerations

Workflow Management tools must at a minimum provide support for

Workflow definition

Case Routing with

Flexible assignment

Escalation

Exception handling

Reporting

Tools to assist Workflow Management should support the following:

Specification of individuals, their roles and tasks, and theirrelationships

Specification of the workflow

Automatic routing of cases

Exception handling if a task is not performed within a prescribedelapsed time

Routing of a case based on its contents (for example, different decisionprocesses depending on the importance of the decisions)

Assignment of cases to roles and to individuals, with manual override

Assignment based on priority

Re-assignment of cases

Reporting

Security Management (276)

Security Management tools provide the components that make up thesecurity layer of the final system, and may provide required securitycontrols to the development environment. While some of these tools maybe considered as nothing more than security-specific PackagedComponents, many are an integral part of the development environmenttoolset.

Security Management tools include:

Intrusion detection—discovers and alerts administrators of intrusionattempts.

Network assessment—performs scheduled and selective probes of thenetwork's communication services, operating systems, and routers insearch of those vulnerabilities most often used by unscrupulousindividuals to probe, investigate, and attack your network.

Platform security—minimizes the opportunities for intruders tocompromise corporate systems by providing additional operating systemsecurity features.

Web-based access control—enables organizations to control and manageuser access to web based applications with restricted access.

Fraud services—methods of verifying the identity of credit card users toreduce the amount of fraudulent credit card transactions.

Mobile code security—protects corporate resources, computer files,confidential information, and corporate assets from possible mobile codeattack.

E-mail content filtering—allows organizations to define and enforcee-mail policies to ensure the appropriate email content.

Application development security toolkits—allow programmers to integrateprivacy, authentication, and additional security features intoapplications by using a cryptography engine and toolkit.

Encryption—provides confidential communications to prevent thedisclosure of sensitive information as it travels over the network. Thiscapability is essential for conducting business over an unsecuredchannel such as the Internet.

Public key infrastructure—provides public-key encryption and digitalsignature services. The purpose of a public-key infrastructure is tomanage keys and certificates. A PKI enables the use of encryption,digital signatures, and authentication services across a wide variety ofapplications.

Authentication system—provides a business with the ability to accuratelyknow who they are conducting business with.

Firewall—protects against theft, loss, or misuse of important data onthe corporate network, as well as protection against attempted denial ofservice attacks. Firewalls may be used at various points in the networkto enforce different security policies.

Product Considerations

a) Does the tool use Role-based access control?

Role-based access control establishes access rights and profiles basedon job functions within the environment. If different access rights arerequired for security administrators vs. code developers vs. codereviewers vs. testers, then the correct access can be established basedon these functions.

b) Does the tool have flexible auditing capabilities?

The security administrator should be able to granularly configure whatis being audited by the tool. The audit logs should be able tooptionally record User ID, time-of-day, location of access, successfuland unsuccessful access or change attempts, etc.

c) What are the performance implications of the tool?

Some security services, such as content scanning or auditing, may addnoticeable processing time and requirements to the system. Tools shouldbe architectured in such a way that performance impacts are or can beconfigured to be minimal.

d) Does the tool comply with industry accepted standards?

Many standards are emerging in the security technology marketplace.These include standards for cryptographic services, directory services,IP security, etc. In order to enhance future integration possibilities,choose vendors who are developing open solutions which comply withstandards

Information Management (262)

Information Management of the development architecture is providedthrough an integrated development repository. At this level ofintegration, tools share a common repository of development objects,design documents, source code, test plans and data. Ideally, therepository would be a single database with an all-encompassinginformation model. Realistically, the repository must be built byintegrating the repositories of the different development tools throughinterfaces. Tool vendors may also build part of the integratedrepository by integrating specific products.

Implementation Considerations

a) Is there a desire to enforce consistency in the development effort?

Engagement teams should consider the use of a repository to enforceconsistency across development efforts. A repository can store standarddata, process, design, and development objects for use duringapplication development activities. Developers then use these standardobjects during implementation. As objects are defined once in therepository and reused throughout the implementation process,applications display a consistent look, feel, and flow while enforcingthe standards inherent in the repository objects.

b) Will analysis and design objects be reused?

Based upon engagement experiences, an engagement team should considerusing a repository when the development team reuses analysis and designobjects and deliverables during later phases of the development process.A repository houses many application development components includingdata definitions, process models, page designs, window designs, commonGUI widgets, message layouts, and copybooks.

These components can be reused across large development projects toincrease developer productivity and decrease the risks associated withcoding and testing the same components multiple times.

c) How large is the development team?

Large development teams require more standardization and control inorder to ensure that the team remains productive and maximizes reuse ofanalysis and design components. A repository provides the developmentteams with the ability to reuse objects defined in the repository in acontrolled manner. Most engagements consider using a repository once thenumber of developers exceeds ten.

d) Is the development team geographically dispersed?

An Information Management repository is crucial when teams whose designsmust integrate are in different places. The repository becomes a meansof communication that is formal and enforces the agreed interfaces.

e) Do a number of tools need to be integrated?

A repository management tool may be required to provide an integrationplatform for existing and future tools, providing communication amongall tools where appropriate.

Product Considerations

a) Is support for user defined objects required?

The repository may need to be extended by the Engagement team to supportcustom objects defined by the Application Development team. Somerepositories support user-defined objects as part of the basefunctionality. Others allow customization of the repository by the userwhile some are not designed for customization at all. If the repositoryrequires extensive customization, a buy versus build decision may berequired.

b) Is a logical or physical repository more beneficial?

The Engagement team must consider the costs and benefits of a physicalrepository versus a logical repository. A physical repository isimplemented as a single product. Many CASE tools employ this type ofrepository by housing all application development objects in a singlesource. Application development tools are then tightly integrated withthe repository.

A logical repository integrates multiple tools to form an applicationdevelopment repository. The various tools employed in the developmentenvironment are bridged together by custom architecture components. Thisapproach is commonly used when the Engagement team takes a best of breedapproach to tool selection.

c) What are the current and proposed future platforms?

The Engagement team should determine whether the repository must supportmultiple platforms. The selected tool should not only support currentplatforms but also support the future platform direction of the project.

d) Does the product support multiple versions of objects?

The repository should support multiple versions of objects. By doingthis, the repository can support applications in multiple phases ofdevelopment. The repository tool should control access to the versionsof objects by providing check-in and check-out functionality. Thisallows multiple developers in various phases of development to work fromthe same repository while allowing only one developer update access to aparticular object at a time.

e) Are there existing tools that influence the selection of theInformation Management tool?

Engagement teams have found that tools used in other parts of the clientorganization influence the selection of a repository tool. Clients mayhave experience and existing skills with certain Information Managementtools that drive the decision to use those tools corporate-wide on otherinitiatives. The KX may also provide input to the tool selection processbased on previous experience and skills of team members.

f) What are the other capabilities of the tool?

Engagement teams often chose a tool that can be used in other areas ofthe development environment. Many Engagement teams select data modelingtools that can double as Information Management tools. Using one toolfor multiple purposes results in fewer integration points in thearchitecture and less time and cost training personnel on multipletools.

g) Should the Information Management tool support multiple repositories?

As many repositories do not provide sufficient versioning functionality,it is common to have more than one repository on large projects.Typically there would be one repository for development, one for systemtest, and one for production. This improves overall control. Anotherreason could be that there is concurrent development of differentreleases, each requiring its own repository. Hence, on a large project,a tool that supports multiple repositories is often a requirement.

Does the Repository Management tool allow only authorized changes to bemade to its contents by providing some form of access control?

The repository contents are effectively the building blocks of thesystem and have broad reuse. A facility for security is required toprevent unauthorized changes to the repository elements and hence toensure high quality and consistent repository content. For example,restrictions are often placed on making changes to data elements becausead-hoc changes by a single designer could have devastating impacts onother parts of the design. Repository access control is important wheredevelopers in the development environment need to be assigned differentrights to the repository. Typically, the developers will be placed ingroups with diminishing access rights such as repository administrator,technical support, designer, or programmer. These access rights mayrelate to read/write/modify/delete authority. This method of accesscontrol is far more flexible than simple object locking.

h) Does the toolprovide repository reporting facilities?

Repository reports serve as an audit trail for changes to objects withina repository and can be used to communicate these changes to the entireteam. The Repository Management tool should provide this utility.

Reports for impact analysis are extremely useful in the change controlprocess. As the repository maintains relationships between repositoryobjects, ‘where-used’ and ‘contains’ report facilities can be veryuseful when dealing with change requests.

i) Is the tool an active or passive Information Management tool?

Active Information Management tools can be used to generate components,whereas passive tools are used to hold information about the tool butare not used to build the system. The use of an active InformationManagement tool increases productivity because of the facility togenerate components.

Does the tool need to be customized to provide an integration platformfor all the tools in the current development environment as well asthose to be supported in the future?

If the repository needs to be customized in order to integrate with allthe required tools, then it is important that the Repository tool has apublished interface and underlying data model. Using such a repositorymakes interfacing other tools with the repository considerably easierand less time consuming.

Flexibility is important if a number of point tools are to be used inthe development process as opposed to using an integrated CASE tool.

j) Does the tools repository support validation?

All key characteristics of repository objects (for example, dataelements) and their inter-relationships should be validated. Taking dataelements as an example, these characteristics may include:

Naming standards for data element names

Naming standards for variable names associated with each programminglanguage

Data element types

Data element length and precision

Data element window display and internal precision.

At a minimum, naming standards must be validated to allow betternavigation of the repository and easier reuse of elements.

Does the tool provide a means of describing entities, such as sourcecode files that do not exist as repository objects?

The integrity of references to entities that exist outside therepository but within the folder management system must be maintained.If the tool does not directly support this, procedures will have to beput in place to ensure the consistency of references to these entities.

Repository Management (202)

Repository Management is the key information management tool. Therepository should be:

Open, with a published interface and an underlying data model. In somedevelopment environments multiple repositories may be used. Onerepository can be integrated to an upper-case design tool, and anotherone to a lower-case design tool, each of them offering the bestcapabilities in their respective domain. It is then key thatrepositories offer import/export capabilities, so properbridging/synchronizing capabilities can be developed.

Extensible, affording the flexibility for extending the type ofinformation that can be captured.

Integrated, with the tools that are used to populate the repository andto draw information from the repository.

Scalable, the repository-enabled environment must be able to supporttens to hundreds of users simultaneously, and tens to hundreds ofthousands of repository relationships. It should also scale downwards,so that it can also be easily used by small projects. This is a majorcriteria for usability.

A development repository results in three important benefits for adevelopment organization and for the business units they support:

Information is kept in one place, in a known and organized structure.This means that effort is not wasted initially in recreating work thatalready exists and effort is not wasted later on when reconcilingrelevant information. This is often referred to as “full life-cyclesupport.”

Design information, created for one step of the development process, canbe fed to the next step, reducing effort and knowledge “gaps” ormisunderstandings.

The repository captures information relevant to each stage inapplication development: design 1102, construction 1104, testing 1106,migration, execution, and operation 1108.

FIG. 11 is an illustration showing information captured in theRepository and reused.

The challenge is to create such a repository. Most of the availabletools on the market do not explicitly support this comprehensive conceptof a repository.

The alternative is to:

Extend the repository. This is why the extensibility of the repositoryis so important. When extending the repository, consider how well futureversions of the base repository will accommodate the extensions.Migrating to a future version may be more difficult after extending therepository. Extending the repository therefore requires a carefultrade-off.

Use several repositories. It is not infrequent to see two repositoriescoexisting; for example, one upper-case and one lower-case repository.Bridges between these repositories are key. Quality of import/exportcapabilities of the various repositories are key.

In many instances, content may not be stored directly in the repositoryand must be placed in storage. In this case, only a reference is storedin the repository.

When complete integration is achieved, the repository can serve as acommunication enabler for a large collection of development tools. FIG.12 is an illustration showing the Repository's central role in thedevelopment environment.

This can be achieved either by using an integrated CASE tool, or byintegrating point tools around a common repository.

In addition to the repository, which plays a key role, other importanttool categories include the following.

k) Security

Repository access can sometimes be controlled using an access controlfunction, which comes with the repository. A common technique is togroup users and assign different access rights to the different groups.Each of these groups is also assigned specific read/write/delete/modifyauthority. For example, the following groups may be defined as havingincreasing rights:

Programmer

Designer

Technical support

Repository administrator

A less flexible alternative is to lock objects. A locked object cannotbe changed until the repository administrator unlocks it. This is a lessflexible approach but may be used when flexible access controlfunctionality is not part of the repository. A tricky, and somewhatrisky, approach to compensate for lacking access control functionalityis to use information about the repository's internal storage mechanismto design an access control scheme. For example, if data elements arestored in a particular directory, tools from the network operatingsystem can be used to limit access to that directory. If data elementsare stored in a particular table, tools from the DBMS can be used tolimit rights to that table. How well this works depends on howgracefully the repository handles error messages from the networkoperating system or the DBMS. This approach should be tested before itis implemented.

l) Repository Maintenance

Creating and Changing Data Elements—As soon as data element maintenancebecomes structured and is based on formal requests, it is practical tomake the requests available to the developers in electronic format.Ideally, the requests should be entered into a database, which alsocontains information on status, comments on the request, and otherpertinent information. This database can be a useful communicationvehicle.

An alternative approach to maintaining history in cases where therepository does not offer good versioning capabilities, is to maintain ashadow repository where previous versions of repository objects arestored. This only works for those repository objects whose maintenanceis strictly controlled.

Creating and Changing Other Repository Objects—It often occurs that therepository is part of an integrated CASE tool. Here, the tools used topopulate the repository come with the repository and the integrationwork is already complete.

This, however, is not always the case. In some instances, the tools forpopulating extensions of the repository are not provided, and in othercases, a stand-alone repository is used. In these cases, the integrationbetween the design tools and the repository must be performed by theTechnology Infrastructure team. This was achieved on a number ofprojects that chose a “best-of-breed point tool” approach where theyintegrated these point tools around a repository. The integration mayrequire some challenging work writing parsers, which analyze the outputfrom the individual point tool, and use this to populate the repository.These technical complexities should be hidden from designers andprogrammers by providing friendly interfaces to the parsers, or byhaving the repository administrator trigger the parsing at regularintervals.

Repository Validation and Mass Changes—All key characteristics of dataelements, and their inter-relationships, should be validated, including:

Naming standards for the element name

Naming standards for the variable name associated with each programminglanguage

Type (for example, numeric and alphanumeric)

Length and precision

Window display and internal precision

Similar validation can be performed on other repository objectsdepending on project standards. At a minimum, naming standards must bevalidated. This helps designers navigate the repository and therebyencourages reuse.

Import and export utilities, which provide exchanges between therepository and flat files, can be useful in several ways. They make iteasy to take a snapshot of the repository for archiving, and they allowfor reuse of the contents of other repositories.

m) Analysis, Reports, and Queries

Reports for impact analysis are extremely useful in the change controlprocess. As the repository maintains relationships between repositoryobjects, where-used and contains reports are usually provided with therepository. Storing the names of affected repository objects in anarea-affected table can be useful when grouping change requests duringassignment, or when defining a release. The area-affected table is alsoa valuable tool that can be used to facilitate migration fromdevelopment to system test.

The ability to easily create various repository reports is important toleverage the information in the repository. A scripting language, asimple report builder, or a query tool provides this capability. Havinga query tool with an intuitive user interface and good report formattingfeatures is a necessity on a large project. The query tool can be usedto provide standard reports for designers and programmers, printeddesign information for external reviews, and ad hoc requests for therepository administrator.

Folder Management (204)

It is not always practical to store all information in the samerepository. One reason for this is the repository's physicalimplementation. For example, if the repository is implemented on top ofa relational DBMS, this supporting structure does not provide goodsupport for storing flat files. It may therefore often be most practicalto populate the repository with place-holders for entities which resideoutside the repository. With this scheme, the place-holder serves as alogical pointer. This scheme obviously requires some work to ensureintegrity, but in practice it can work quite well. It works better ifthe objects outside can be organized in a structured way. This is wherefolders come in. They can be used to impose a structure on flat files; astructure, which can correspond to the structure of the repository.Folders should provide:

Flexible access rights based on user profiles, which differentiate (atleast) between read and write access

Efficient search for a component across several folders

Migration between folders

Nested folders

Links to avoid duplication of components while still showing that acomponent belongs to several folders

Media Content Management (206)

Methods for storing and managing media content range from simple foldermanagement techniques to multimedia digital asset management systems,capable of indexing and manipulating numerous multimedia data types.There are a number of key requirements for Media Content Management—inparticular, a Media Content Management system should have the abilityto:

Manage multiple file formats

Efficiently store high volume files

Manage metadata on files within the system

Manage multiple versions of media files

Manage revision history of changes to media files

Control media storage across locations (online, near line, offline)

Whether the functionality described above is handled as an integral partof the system, or by manual processes implemented by the InformationManagement team depends on the richness of functionality provided by thetools chosen.

Additional functionality provided by advanced Media Content Managementtools may include:

Intelligent indexing of media types (allowing specialized searchfacilities)

Capabilities for browsing media content (low-res images, previews)

High performance proprietary file systems (both in terms of speed andvolume)

Implementation Considerations

a) What formats need to be supported?

The method of Media Content Management depends heavily on what media isto be stored. Ensure that the target media formats are understood beforeimplementing the Media Content Management approach.

b) Where should media content be stored?

Where to store media content greatly depends on the volume of media tobe stored, and the performance requirements for retrieving that data.One thing is certain however; when dealing with large quantities ofmedia, it is necessary to employ a dedicated media server, thus avoidingvolume and performance hits with the rest of the developmentenvironment, while allowing the possibility of tuning the media serverfor optimal performance.

The cost of data storage is not insignificant, especially whenconsidering the total cost (not just that of the hardware and software,but also the effort required to support it). This means that muchthought must be put into a media storage strategy. This includes astrategy for deciding which media should be on-line (instantlyaccessible), near-line (accessible with short delay, for example, CDjuke box), or even possibly off-line (manual intervention required).

Object Management (208)

Object Management tools provide capabilities for viewing objects, theirmethods and attributes, and the dependencies between these objects.

Object Management tools also provide specific analysis tools, in orderto understand interdependencies between the core classes and thecomponents. When classes and components are modified, impact analysistools are required to see where the modified entity is being used,allowing them to understand what is the overall impact of the change.This is more complex than with traditional systems as a veritablespider's web of dependencies between classes, components, andapplications may ensue. In addition, OM features such as inheritance andpolymorphism make tracking down dependencies with simple text searchtools much more difficult.

Quality Management (264)

Quality Management is a management discipline that promotes a customersatisfaction focus and continuous improvement. Quality Management toolssupport the definition and implementation of quality.

A number of integrated Quality Management tools are available that maycombine the functionality of all the required quality subcomponents intoa single product. Many quality processes however, (such as ExpectationManagement) do not require specialized tools, and are thereforesupported by standard productivity tools.

Metrics (210)

Metrics are an important part of quality management in that they providea method of measuring (for example, sampling, testing, and determining)whether a process or product meets a given criterion. With Metrics,different stakeholders can agree that a product objectively meets anexpectation, or that a process has been improved by a measurable amount.Without Metrics, stakeholders can only have subjective opinions that mayor may not agree.

Measurement tools are used to measure process quality and productquality. Process quality may include Metrics such as the time it takesto process a change request. Product quality should be measured for allthe product expectations the project has set. This measurement processis the inspection part of quality management.

Statistical Process Control (252)

Statistical Process Control tools are used to analyze the resultsobtained with the measurement tools. These display trends that can beused as the basis for process improvement or, in other cases, productrework.

Continuous Improvement (212)

Continuous Improvement tools are used to analyze and improve thedevelopment processes.

Continuous Improvement is a process management technique by which actionis taken to modify a process when the measurement or outcomes of thatprocess are unsatisfactory. Process improvement is required whenever thenumber of defects exceeds the desired level, productivity falls below adesired threshold, or client expectations fail to be met. Once theprocess has been modified, it is remeasured to see whether the expectedgain was actually achieved.

Training (254)

Training tools provide methods to apply a standardized training approachto a large group of people. Training tools can complement or take theplace of traditional instructor-led training depending on the type ofinformation that must be communicated. Computer-Based Training (CBT)tools offer the advantage of being able to train personnel directly onthe target environment.

At the more basic level, training tools can also include online orpaper-based training materials—not offering all the advantages of CBTs,but still providing the flexibility and convenience because they can beconducted as and when the trainee requires, and in any location. Thisremoves the need to organize classes.

The decision of whether to use CBT, online, paper-based orinstructor-led training is affected by the number of people that have tobe trained, the complexity of the subject, and the availability anddistribution of the people to be trained.

Program & Project Management (274)

Program and Project Management tools assist the management teams intheir daily work. These tools, typically packaged as integrated suitesof software, provide the basic functionality required for planning,scheduling, tracking, and reporting at both the program and projectlevel.

Planning

Planning tools are used to assist in program and project planningincluding the development of the Program Resource Plan, the WorkBreakdown Structure (WBS), the Organization Breakdown Structure, CostAccounting, milestones, and deliverables.

Scheduling

Scheduling Tools are used to allocate resources against the WBS, todetermine the timeline for a specific project, and to schedule theallocation of resources at the program level.

Tracking

Project tracking tools enable the project manager to track the actualproject status against the original plan and schedule. Integration withthe time reporting system and techniques such as Estimates to Complete(ETCs) are valuable in tracking project status.

Reporting

Reporting Tools are used to summarize status and metrics to program andproject management.

Configuration Management (270)

Configuration Management tools ensure that consistency betweencomponents and a given environment is maintained over time as componentsare changed.

Implementation Considerations

a) Does the testing effort involve numerous applications with commoncomponents?

Engagement teams frequently require Configuration Management tools tosupport the testing process. Large development efforts may have multiplereleases of an application in the development pipeline (development,unit test, integration test, user acceptance test, and production).Additionally, some environments have multiple applications that sharecommon components. Multiple versions of common components may berequired depending upon the application being tested. ConfigurationManagement tools assist in migrating code between these environments.These tools can also be used to manage different versions of testscripts for various releases of an application.

b) Where is the development team located?

Configuration Management tools are essential when development teams arenot centralized at one location. These tools provide services, such asversion control, when geographically distributed teams need to accesscommon modules or data, such as code tables. Configuration Managementtools may still be necessary even if the development team iscentralized, depending upon other criteria such as development teamsize.

c) How large is the application or development team?

Large applications, as well as large development teams, requireConfiguration Management tools to help control versioning of code,changes to code, and migration of code (and accompanying design and testdocumentation) through the development and testing environments.

As the size of the team increases, the communication between teammembers becomes more cumbersome. The Configuration Management toolsprovide a structure for communication between team members regardingversion control, change control, and migration control.

As the size of the application increases so does the number of objects,files, or components. The management of these items becomes increasinglydifficult to manage and track during the development process. TheConfiguration Management tool provides structure for managing theobjects, files, and components and reduces the risk of lost informationcaused by version problems, or by items not being migrated properly.

d) Is the development effort to be sustained over a prolonged period?

Over time, a large number of configurations will evolve andConfiguration Management tools can be used to control the evolution andto document these configurations.

e) Is there a large number of components?

It may be necessary to keep track of and control configurationsconsisting of objects such as training materials, documentation,hardware components, system software and even building characteristics.The existence of a large number of such components makes the task ofmanaging their configurations complex, and a dedicated ConfigurationManagement tool becomes crucial to the process.

f) Are multiple organizations contributing?

Configuration Management tools are particularly important when there aremultiple vendors and subcontractors involved and there is a need toalign what is assembled in preparation for the integration test.

g) Does the system exceed 100 modules?

Configuration Management tools are needed once the system becomes largeand many modules (which may include programs, header files, copybooks,shared components, subroutines, and so on) have to be managed. There isa significant cost involved in formal configuration management. If thesystem has a little over 100 modules, the Configuration Managementcomponent may consist merely of a whiteboard or Excel spreadsheet. Asthe number of modules grows to about 1000, a dedicated tool is required.

h) Do the generations or versions of components change frequently?

A Configuration Management tool is important if many generations orversions are to be managed. This will generally be the case if theproject involves a large development team. There may be external factorsthat the project team has no control over such as hardware vendors whochange their configurations frequently. The internal components, forexample, software modules must be configured to match externalcomponents such as operating systems and hardware components.

Product Considerations

a) Should the engagement team build a custom configuration managementtool or purchase an existing one?

An engagement team must determine whether to purchase a ConfigurationManagement tool or build one. The build decision should consider thecost of designing and developing the functions required by theengagement team. Additionally, the project must consider the resourcesand development time required to build the tool and when the tool isneeded in the application development schedule.

The buy decision can still be expensive and requires additionalinvestments for training project personnel. These tools also providemany features that may not be required by the engagement team.

b) Does the engagement team have more experience with certain tools?

Engagement teams found that tools used in other parts of the clientorganization influence the selection process. Teams may have experienceand existing skills with certain Configuration Management tools thatdrive the decision to use those tools on other initiativescorporate-wide. One may also provide input to the tool selection processbased upon previous experience and skills of team members. Using toolsthat the engagement team already has experience with provides severaladvantages, especially a reduction in training costs.

c) Does an existing component satisfy this requirement?

Engagement teams sometimes choose tools that provide multipledevelopment functions, including Configuration Management tools. Thedecision to choose between available Configuration Management tools mayalready have been decided as a result of using certain other toolswithin the development environment.

d) Does the product integrate with the existing or proposedarchitecture?

The engagement team should select tools that integrate with other toolsin the development environment and operate on the same platform. Projectteams should select tools where vendors provide support for theintegration between the Application Development tool and theConfiguration Management tool. Such integration helps to easily andeffectively manage the objects or files created by the ApplicationDevelopment tool.

How does the project define a configuration?

Does the tool handle all types of components in the configuration?

The components involved in Configuration Management typically involvehardware, system software, and application components together withtheir documentation. The tools should be able to manage and keep trackof all the component types that make up a configuration.

e) Does the tool provide capabilities for exception reports?

If for some reason a repository component is not at the correctpromotion level, the tool should be able to report on this whenrequired.

f) Will a source control system suffice as a Configuration Managementtool?

Generally, source control systems must be enhanced to provide a basicConfiguration Management tool. The functional enhancements aretypically:

Definition of a grouping mechanism for files to associate them withcertain versions.

Promotion mechanisms

Definition of interconfiguration dependencies such as between aparticular version's files and that version's related test data.

g) Does the toolprovide ease of access to information?

The tools should automate the storage and retrieval of all dependentsoftware components indicated by an impact analysis report.

Version Control (214)

Version Control tools control access to source code as it is developedand tested and allow multiple versions to be created, maintained, orretrieved. For example, a source code comparator can be used to identifychanges between different versions of programs.

The component-based development raises a new challenge: when a singlecomponent is used by several applications, versioning becomessignificantly more complex and therefore, advanced versioning software,including system support for versioning, is required.

Implementation Considerations

a) Should the evolution of the system be tracked in terms of who makeschanges or why certain decisions are made along the way?

Version Control tools allow systematic storage of information about whomakes changes in what order so that the evolution of the system can betracked. The tools usually provide a facility to report on differencesin versions so the version that existed when a critical change was madecan be identified and recreated or retrieved. The tools can also providea means of documenting why decisions are made during the evolution ofthe system. These decisions would have been made based on the version ofthe documentation for the system that existed at that time. VersionControl tools allow the state of the system at a particular time to berecorded. Hence improved auditability for decisions can be achieved.

b) Is there a large development team?

Version Control tools allow developers to work semi-independently and tochoose the degree of integration they need at any given time. They canshield themselves from the tentative development performed on sharedcomponents and test a portion of the system with a stable environmentaround them. This prevents the development team from having to developone full sequence at a time and increases the ability of a large numberof people to work productively together, thus compressing the timerequired to develop a system.

c) Is there concurrent development of multiple versions of the system?

A comprehensive Version Control tool set is critical if there isconcurrent development of multiple versions of the system. This is oftenthe case when system development is to be sustained over an extendedperiod. Special provisions must be made to ensure that the library andrepository structures are rich enough to be able to support thenecessary versions. In this environment, a log of changes also becomesvery important as fixes applied to earlier versions generally have to beapplied to later versions as well.

d) Is it likely that the system will need to be rolled back to aprevious version at some stage in the development?

This is typically the case when the project is breaking ground, usingnew techniques or untried architectures. Version Control tools provide ameans of taking snapshots of the system in time. If there are changes inthe environment that force the system to be rolled back to a previousstage in the development, Version Control tools allow access to previousversions and mechanisms for reverting to an earlier version.

e) When should I set up version control?

Version Control should be set up from the beginning. By delaying versioncontrol, manual Version Control must be used. This result can be anincreased cost in disk space in the development environment (because ofthe number of versions of each module that must be kept) and can lead tosome human versioning errors.

f) What kind of information should I add to version control?

There are different approaches: Everything (hand-made code, generatedfiles, documentation, even compiled exec file or DLLs), some of theabove etc. In general, documentation should be added if no additionaldesign repository exists, otherwise, use the repository, which usuallyhas a versioning capability. Adding binary files will usually have to beconsidered during the initial setup phase, as this requiressignificantly more memory and not all tools can handle binary files in acorrect manner.

g) Which stages to add?

The stages in the version control (Dev, Assembly test, system test,etc.) should be added according to the development approach. Strongrelationship to migration control. Should also be automated and isusually supported by the tools.

Product Considerations

a) Does the tool provide capabilities to cater for a system running onmultiple platforms or a distributed system?

Ideally, the Version Control tool must be able to operate on all theplatforms in use, whilst at the same time performing Version Control forall components across the entire system.

b) Does the tool provide support for actions like mass builds?

Usually, custom tools are put on top of the vendors tools to supportactions like mass builds etc. Some tools (or add-ons) support thisalready. This is vital for the project, as it allows huge productivitygains in later phases of the project.

c) How easy is it to implement batch solutions?

It should be considered if a batch/API interface exists for implementingbatch solutions.

Change Control (218)

The Change Control system should provide the following features:

Free format description of changes

Classification of changes in several different ways (area affected,priority, estimated cost, authorization)

Flexible, customizable sorting and reporting to ensure that a change ishandled in a timely manner

Ideally, the Change Control system should also be integrated withworkflow support, the repository, and the source code control system.This ensures rapid processing of the change, accurate analysis of thearea affected, and correct locking and unlocking of repository objectsand source modules.

Implementation Considerations

a) Does the project require strict scope control?

Specifications and scope may be changed at any time if Change Controltools and standards are not implemented. This can result in the projectrunning over budget, or being delivered late with inconsistent qualitybecause requirements change continuously.

b) Is the system complex?

Change control has broader applicability than to just application sourcecode. It may also affect the look and feel, training materials,documentation, and so forth. Change Control must be formalized if thesystem is complex with many components.

c) Do changes need to be authorized by specific personnel?

Change control tools provide a vehicle for ensuring that only authorizedchanges are made and signed off. This ensures conceptual, properownership of the total look and feel of the application. Change requestsmay also be rejected or deferred by an authorized person.

d) Is coordination of changes required?

Facilities to track interdependencies between change requests (forexample, change request A must be completed before change request B canstart) are provided by Change Control tools. This can be used toencourage efficient scheduling and to ensure that work is notduplicated.

e) Should a record be kept of changes that fall beyond the capacity ofthe project at that time?

Change Control tools can provide a vehicle for capturing good ideas. Ifthe project does not have the capacity to implement those ideas atpresent, the Change Control tool can be used to capture those ideas.These ideas can be reinvestigated when a future release is planned.

f) Are conflicting change requests likely to occur?

Change request tools can be used to identify changes that conflict, forexample, one user wants a green background and another wants a bluebackground. The changes must be-resolved through some kind of dialog ordiscussion and Change Control can be used to initiate this process.

g) Is it likely that the system will need to be rolled back to a certainstate?

This is typically the case when the project is breaking ground by usingnew techniques or untried architectures.

Change control tools provide a means of identifying at what point intime a critical change was implemented and that information can be usedto find out what version existed at that time.

h) Is there a need to evaluate the impact of implementing a change onthe project ?

Change control tools typically support some kind of impact analysis andmay be integrated with an impact analysis tool set. Impact analysis isimportant in order to group changes so that they can be implementedeffectively.

Multiple changes may affect the same component and it would be wastefulto open that component many times over and implement the changes one ata time. Impact analysis can be used to ensure that all relevant changesto that component are implemented together. Hence impact analysis isimportant for scheduling purposes and for estimating cost.

Product Considerations

a) Does the tool provide a capability to classify change requests?

Change requests may occur as a consequence of changing requirements, oras a result of nonconformities (or defects) in the system. The toolshould be able to classify change requests into categories such asincidents, faults, or enhancements. The tool should also have theability to update these categories if required. Classification ofdifferent change requests in several different ways such as areaaffected, priority, estimated cost or authorization is important toensure correct scheduling of the implementation of changes. Flexible,customized sorting and reporting based on this classification isrequired to ensure that change is handled in a timely manner.

b) Should an Impact Analysis tool be purchased or developed?

Impact analysis tools are typically required to provide analysis of awide range of types of documents such as Word, Excel, or PowerPoint.

If an impact analysis tool cannot be found that supports the entireenvironment, it is critical to develop procedures or utilities that willreport on where items are used. The first step is to identify the itemsto be searched, and to build procedures around searching them (forexample, databases, files, workspaces, programs, screens/forms,reports). It is also important to identify who will be responsible forthe impact analysis (DBA, analysts, programmers, team leaders, and soon) to avoid this work falling between the cracks.

c) Does the tool provide free format description of changes?

Free format descriptions are important because this allows better andmore understandable documentation of change requests and associateddecisions.

d) Are there going to be multiple releases of the software?

The tool should allocate change requests to different releases based onpriority and resource availability. It should also provide a means ofattaching a deadline to a change request.

Does the tool provide a means of indicating which development teammember is best suited to perform the implementation of that changerequest?

This functionality should be available as part of the schedulingcapability. An added feature would be the capability to balance workloadacross the team.

e) How does the tool handle exceptions?

The tool should provide a capability to generate exception reports thathighlight issues such as change requests that are in danger of notmeeting the release to which it was allocated.

f) What is the prediction for volume of change requests for the project?

The tool should be able to cope with the expected volume of change.

g) Is validation of data entered into the change request form aconsideration?

It may be necessary to ensure that the data entered on a change requestform is valid. This is particularly important if the development team isinexperienced or if the project is particularly complex. An example ofdata validation would be to ensure that the change is assigned to avalid team to prevent a change request from falling through the cracks.

h) Is recording of resolution details and root causes required?

This capability provides useful tracking across the complete life cycleof a change request.

i) What reporting capabilities are needed on the project?

Some Change Control tools can report on status of change requests at theindividual, team, and project level. Such reports can provideinformation about work done to date and Estimate to Complete (ETC)values.

j) How many users will simultaneously be accessing the system?

The tool should cater to the size of the project. Maintainingconsistency of information may otherwise become a problem withsimultaneous access. The tool should provide some kind of protection ofchange requests if simultaneous access is likely to occur.

k) Does the tool provide a means of prioritizing change requests?

The tool should provide capabilities for prioritizing change requestsbased on business impact and the impact of implementing the change.

Does the tool provide capabilities for predicting the cost, risk, andinstabilities created as a result of implementing a change request?

These capabilities need not provide completely automated prediction butshould work in conjunction with an analyst.

l) Does the tool identify component dependencies?

This is an important aspect of impact analysis that is required toensure that all components impacted by a change request are identified.

Migation Control (216)

Migration Control tools control multiple versions of source code, data,and other items as they are changed, tested, and moved from onedevelopment environment into another, for example, from development totest and from test to production. Data migration control tools managemultiple versions of the database and its data to ensure that accuratedata and structure are maintained in the environment, and to ensure thatversions of application code and database are deployed consistently.Types of data that would be migrated include base codes data andconverted data. Other Migration Control tools manage other types ofobjects to ensure that complete versions of all components reside in theproduction environment (for example, test definitions and scripts).

Implementation Considerations

a) Are there multiple environments running in parallel?

Multiple environments are typically required when the project is facedwith serious time constraints. Typically the project team performsintegration or systems testing on one portion of the system, whiledeveloping the next portion. The team corrects errors based on one testwhile at the same time, the next test cycle or testing of the next partof the system is performed. This means that multiple environments existthat are configured differently and use a different version of thesystem components. The migration of these different versions andconfigurations between environments must be carefully controlled usingMigration Control tools. For successful migration there must beconsistent migration of all components and their dependents.

b) Are multiple releases being developed in parallel?

If multiple releases are being developed in parallel, it is vital toprovide a consistent means of migrating configurations and versions fromone environment to the next. This ensures that there is no confusion ofcomponents in each release as the move is made from, for example, a unittest environment to a system test environment.

c) Is the development effort to be sustained over a prolonged period?

Migration control tools keep a log of what is migrated. It may berequired to review what has happened over time, in order to gain anunderstanding of the current status of the system.

d) Is there a need to control who activates migration from oneenvironment to the next?

Migration control tools ensure that only authorized personnel cantrigger the migration of components from one environment to the next.

e) Is the system complex (consisting of more than 1000 components)?

The task of promoting components and locking these components to preventconcurrent or unauthorized updates to them or their dependents becomesvery intricate as the number of components reaches 1000. Migrationcontrol tools can be used to improve productivity by facilitating andcontrolling the migration from one environment to another and byautomating the process. It is possible to bring a large project to acomplete halt if Migration Control is not properly enforced.

Product Considerations

a) Does the tool support the migration of all the components that makeup a migration object?

The Migration Control tool should be able to manage and control themigration of all the components (for example, source code, databaseaccess, make files, run-time data, environment variables, codelibraries, code tables, third-party software, and so forth) which makeup the object to be migrated. The complexity of the Netcentric worldwith so many integrated vendor solutions dramatically increases thenumber and variations of object types.

b) Does the tool facilitate the migration of many components together aswell as migrating components individually?

Migration from a development environment to a system test environmenteither involves a large number of components (migration of all thecomponents belonging to a test cycle) or single components (after codefixing in a program). Either way the Migration Control tool should lockthe migrated component to control changes and allow better coordinationwith the system test team.

c) Does the tool support all the required platforms?

In a development environment where there may be different platforms, itis important that the Migration Control tools be able to synchronizesource migration across platforms. Unit and system tests are normallyperformed on every platform so the migration tool should be able topromote the components across platforms as well as from environment toenvironment.

d) What is the migration strategy?

A push strategy should be facilitated by the migration tool if it isdecided that modules should be tested when those modules are ready fortesting. This is normally the case for unit testing. A pull strategy isneeded if the order of component testing is important as is normally thecase for system testing. In implementing a push strategy it is usual forthe individual programmer to be responsible for migrating the module. Ifthis is the case then the tool should be easy to learn and use. Using apull strategy may decrease the number of people required to know how touse the tool.

Release Management

Release Management tools should provide:

Planning functionalities, to help planning design and development effort

Monitoring functionalities, in order to measure progress towardsdelivery goals

Project interdependencies management

Interface with the change control system

Ideally, the Release Management system should also be integrated withworkflow support, the repository, and the project/program managementsystem.

Environment Management (266)

The modem development environment is both complex and sophisticated. Itsupports many different functional and technical requirements(illustrated by the execution architecture), many different developmentteams, tools from many different product vendors, and often must supportprojects at different stages of the development life cycle. As such, itis a mission-critical production environment and must be managed basedupon an operations architecture. The extent to which the areas of theoperations architecture are implemented must also be a factor of projectsize and duration.

The environment management requirements in this section are based uponthe MODE (Management of Distributed Environments) conceptual framework.This section uses MODE as a framework, adopts MODE terminology, andfocuses on those management tasks from MODE which are particularlyimportant in the development architecture.

MODE identifies four main areas:

Service Management

Systems Management

Managing Change

Service Planning

The subcomponents of Environment management reflect these four MODEareas.

Service Management (222)

Service Management tools support the various aspects of supporting andmanaging the interface with developers.

As defined in MODE, these include the following:

Tools to support and manage the Help Desk

Tools to support the creation, management, and reporting of ServiceLevel Agreements (SLAs) and Operations Level Agreements (OLAs)

Tools to manage and support the quality of the development environment

Systems Management (226)

Systems Management Tools support and manage the operation of thedistributed system.

Startup & Shutdown

A comprehensive development environment rapidly becomes sufficientlycomplex that the startup and shutdown of the environment must be managedcarefully, and preferably automated. This is key to ensuring theintegrity of the environment. Startup may involve the carefullysequenced initialization of networking software, databases, web serversand more. Similarly, shutdown involves saving configuration changes asneeded and gracefully taking down running software in the correctsequence.

Backup & Restore

The incremental value of the daily work performed on the developmentproject is high. This investment must be protected from problems arisingfrom hardware and software failure, and from erroneous user actions andcatastrophes such as fires or floods. The repositories and otherdevelopment information must therefore be backed up regularly. Backupand restore procedures and tools must be tested to ensure that systemcomponents can be recovered as anticipated. The large volumes of complexdata generally require automation of backups and restores.

The advent of Netcentric technologies has introduced an increase inmedia content that requires storage (see Processes—InformationManagement—Media Content Management). The environment may support a highvolume of media files, which must be considered in the backup/restoreplans. Storage capacity planning should allow for the typicallyincreased size of these file types.

As the amount of storage will grow significantly over time on a largeproject, the hardware requirements will increase. Sufficient room forgrowth should be planned when selecting the tools and hardware.Switching tools and hardware can be problematic due to lack of upwardcompatibility (DDS—DLT, various tools etc.).

The time required for backups must also be considered. Usually thenumber of hours without development per day decreases over time and ifbackups can only be performed when no user is logged in, this mightbecome a problem. It is generally the case that the project will benefitfrom buying the fastest and largest backup hardware/software it canafford.

Archiving

Archiving can be particularly useful to safeguard information fromprevious versions or releases. More generally, it is used to create acopy of information that is less time-critical than the currentenvironment at a given time. Archiving may be performed to a medium,which is different from the backup medium, and may involve other toolswhich, for example, provide a higher compression ratio.

Security

Security tools are required in the development environment to ensureagainst unauthorized access by individuals and system processes, tolimit damages caused by such unauthorized access, and to audit accessthe environment services. At the security management level, it may bevaluable to have tools which help manage security profiles, securitygroups, and access rights.

Product Considerations

a) Does the tool use Role-based access control?

Role-based access control establishes access rights and profiles basedon job functions within the environment. If different access rights arerequired for security administrators vs. code developers vs. codereviewers vs. testers, then the correct access can be established basedon these functions.

b) Does the tool have flexible auditing capabilities?

The security administrator should be able to granularly configure whatis being audited by the tool. The audit logs should be able tooptionally record User ID, time-of-day, location of access, successfuland unsuccessful access or change attempts, etc.

c) What are the performance implications of the tool?

Some security services, such as content scanning or auditing, may addnoticeable processing time and requirements to the system. Tools shouldbe architectured in such a way that performance impacts are or can beconfigured to be minimal.

Performance Monitoring

Performance Monitoring tools help ensure that the available resourcesare sufficient to meet the developers' performance requirements. Thesetools can be used to assess end-to-end performance of both batchprocesses such as backups, and interactive processes such asrepository-based file retrieval.

Service Planning (224)

Service Planning is the planning required to anticipate and implementchanges to the following areas:

Service management

Systems management

Managing change

Strategic planning

All these areas relate to the development environment and are analogousto the kind of planning that must occur in the business application'sproduction environment. Key types of tools for development environmentsinclude Performance Modeling and Capacity Planning tools.

Performance Modeling

Performance modeling tools in this category support the analysis of thedevelopment environment's performance, as opposed to that of theclient/server application being developed. A simple spreadsheet may besuitable in some well-known and understood environments, but dedicatedperformance modeling tools should be considered on any project with hightransaction volumes or complex environments involving multipleplatforms.

Capacity Modeling

Capacity modeling tools support the maintenance of adequate processingcapacity for the development environment (for example, workstations,servers, storage devices, and network capacity). These tools range fromspreadsheets to dedicated capacity modeling and simulation tools.

Managing Change (220)

Managing Change tools support the various aspects of identifying andmanaging change in the development environment. Specific tools arediscussed in detail in the MODE Products Database on the KnowledgeXchange.

Data and Software Distribution is a key tool in this category fordevelopment environments that have several developers. These toolsenable automated distribution of data and software to the workstationsand servers in the development environment.

Problem Management (272)

Problem Management tools help track each system investigationrequest—from detection and documentation to resolution (for example,Problem Tracking, Impact Analysis, Statistical Analysis).

Problem Management tools log information about problems detected,classify them, and generate reports. This is essential for capturingmetrics information.

The major functions of Problem Management are:

Problem source and metrics information

Problem solution information

Planning support for problem fixing and migration preparation

Impact analysis capability:

Link to the application design repository to get a precise impactanalysis on a problem

Link to the test plan management system to keep track of the cycle andtest the condition where the problem occurred, to determine the teststage work unit affected by the problem

It is important to select an automated Problem Management system that isintegrated with the program's testing and Configuration Managementtools. Therefore, the Problem Management system must be able to supportthe testing model selected, for example, the V-model, and have tightintegration with the Migration and Version Control tools associated withConfiguration Management.

An automated test script tool can be integrated to allow users toreference scripts that were being used when the error or defect wasfound. A data repository can be integrated into the Problem Managementapplication that will allow the users to build relationships betweenproblems and design and test documentation and application components.

An ability to associate problems with affected work packages and amechanism for version control changes for the work package is necessaryso the package can be migrated back into the testing environment.

When considering an automated tool, also consider what type of securityis required for the Problem Management application. This is closely tiedwith the Configuration Management tools. Only one person should have therights to review and approve problem analysis tasks as well as problemmigration activities.

Implementation Considerations

a) How are problems handled at each stage?

b) How do I plan for trapping problems?

c) Do I retest problems at different stages?

The following is an overview stage containment as documented by theReinventing Testing Project (RTP).

Stage containment is an approach to identify problems in the systembefore they pass to the next stage. It is a measure that helps buildquality into the system. The goal of stage containment is to minimizethe number of errors being passed to the next stage. For the purpose ofstage containment, problems are sorted into categories. Errors aredefined as problems found in the stage where they were created. Defectsare problems found in a stage successive to the stage where they werecreated. Faults are problems found in production. The longer a defectremains undiscovered, the more difficult and expensive it will be tocorrect. Because each stage relies on the decisions made during thecreation of the specification in the previous stage, detecting an errorin a stage after it was made may invalidate some or all of the work donebetween the time the issue was created and the time it was discovered.

The V-model specifies that testing in one stage must be completed beforemoving on to the next stage of testing. Before moving up to the nextstage, it is key that the exit criteria defined for that stage have beenmet. A part of the exit criteria for each stage is that the test hasbeen successfully executed, therefore ensuring the test objectives (orprimary focus of the test) are accomplished before moving on to the nextstage.

Once the objectives of one test stage are met, there is no need torepeat the same testing at the next stage. This is a key concept of theV-model and one that proves difficult to accept and use in practice.There is often a desire to retest just to “make sure everything is OK.”Doing so, inevitably leads to time-consuming testing. In addition, itleaves less time to do the testing required for the current stage oftesting, ultimately resulting in minimal, if any, time for the laststage of testing. In other words, minimize gaps and overlaps between thetesting stages while ensuring quality of delivery.

It is possible, however, that testing at one stage may, and should, usetest scripts from previous stages. Two stages of testing may be executedtogether, using the same scripts, but both sets of test conditions mustbe covered (that is, both sets of objectives must be met). All stages oftesting are required. For example, a thorough assembly test cannot makeup for inadequate component testing, as the objectives of each teststage are different.

d) What other components does the Problem Management system interfacewith?

RTP has identified the following components as interfaces with theProblem Management system.

Configuration Management—When a defect is ready for migration, theMigration Control system can be used to pass the list of components tomigrate. The Problem Management system can keep track of the migrationdate obtained from the Migration Control system.

Design Repository—An impact analysis of a specific component in errorwill be performed directly on the design repository by providing a meansto use the appropriate design repository function or having the ProblemManagement system referencing the design repository objects.

Test Data Management—Test results, expected results, and data comparisonresults can be linked to a defect to provide centralized access to theinformation. Integration also aids in keeping track of the cycle wherethe problem occurred, the test condition, and therefore the businessfunction affected by the problem.

e) How many design repositories should be used?

f) What does the design repository interact with?

Typically, the design repository represents the basis of the applicationdevelopment. It is mainly involved during the construction phase of theapplication and is used to centralize the application definition data.The design repository can be complex, providing impact analysis andapplication generation features.

In a testing environment, the design repository is a safe means ofanalyzing the impact of a problem on the whole application.

Having two separated systems, one for Problem Management and one forapplication design, duplicates the information and introduces errors.Therefore, the interaction between the design repository and the ProblemManagement, Test Planning, and Configuration Management componentssignificantly increases productivity and reduces the risk of errors.

Product Considerations

a) Are there any Problem Management tools identified?

Problem Management tools log error information, generate error reports(such as System Investigation Reports or SIRs), classify problems, andrecord information on the source of the error. Problem Management toolsare essential for the capture of stage containment metric information.

b) What engagement factors affect the use of Problem Management tools?

Risk rating of the engagement—In general, management and planning toolshelp better address the engagement risks. A high risk rating for theengagement affects positively the decision to use tools such as TestPlanning, Test Data Management, Problem Management, and ConfigurationManagement.

Criticality of the engagement—In general, management and planning toolshelp better manage the engagement and ensure the timely delivery of aquality system. Therefore, dealing with a highly critical engagementwill most likely affect positively the decision to use tools such asTest Planning, Test Data Management, Problem Management, andConfiguration Management.

What testing team factors should be considered when using a ProblemManagement tool? Communication between development team and testingteam—A Problem Management tool can be used to track issues, designchanges, and so on, and serve as a communication tool between teams. Aspart of a Change Control mechanism for the engagement, such a tool canhelp improve communication between the development and testing teams.Thus, bad communications between teams can still have a positiveinfluence on the decision to use Problem Management.

Size of the testing team—The size of the testing team has an impact onthe decision to use a Problem Management tool. If the testing team islarge, keeping all team members informed on the status of identifiedproblems is a more complex endeavor than with a small team. The largerthe testing team, the more benefits will be derived from using a ProblemManagement tool to support testing.

Similarly, the larger the testing team, the more benefits will bederived from using a Test Data Management tool (easier control over thetest data for the various testers), a Configuration Management tool(easier control over all system configurations and component versions)and a Test Plan Management tool (easier control over all test cycles,subcycles, their execution statuses, and so on).

System Building (278)

System Building tools comprise the core of the development architectureand are used to design, build, and test the system. All the systembuilding tools must be integrated and share development objectsappropriately.

Analysis & Design (228)

Analysis tools are used to specify the requirements for the system beingdeveloped. They are typically modeling and diagramming tools, whichprovide the ability to diagram system requirements and specify “what” asystem must do.

Design tools are used to specify “how” a system will implement thesesystem requirements. They are typically diagramming tools, whichgraphically depict how the system will be built in terms of its keycomponents. This differs between classical client/server systems andcomponent-based systems:

The standard client/server model comprises application logic,presentation, and communication components, which together support thebusiness processes. For a client/server system, each of these componentsmust be individually defined.

The component-based systems, however, have the data model and processmodels encapsulated within the object model. In addition, the design ofthe component model is directly affected by the business processes whichgovern the way these objects interact. Therefore, with component-basedsystems, the object and component models encapsulate the data andprocess models.

Data Modeling

Data Modeling tools provide a graphical depiction of the logical datarequirements for the system. These tools usually support diagrammingentities, relationships, and attributes of the business being modeled onan Entity-Relationship Diagram (ERD).

As systems are often built on top of legacy databases, some datamodeling tools allow generation of an object model from the legacydatabase data model (DDL). By understanding the E-R diagram representedby the database, it is easier to create an efficient persistenceframework which isolates business components from a direct access torelational databases. Caution is required, however, as the resultingmodel is at best only partial, as an object model has dynamic aspects toit as well as static relationships, and may not correctly reflect theanalysis performed in the problem domain.

When a component or object-based approach is used, data modeling is notperformed. Rather, the object model contains both the data and thebehavior associated with an object. In most systems relational databasesare used and the object model must be mapped to the data model. Standardmechanisms for mapping objects exist. Tools such as Persistence(Persistence Corp.) and DBTools (Rogue Wave) can generate the codenecessary to map objects to a database.

Implementation Considerations

a) Can the development process benefit from a DDL generation tool?

Data modeling tools allow DDL to be generated from the data model. Thetools should support DDL generation for the chosen RDBMs (Sybase®,Oracle®, DB2®). In addition, the DDL generator should take advantage ofthe specific advanced features supported by each of the RDBMs.

b) Can developers benefit by a graphical depiction of the logical andphysical data requirements?

Data modeling tools help to graphically develop the logical and physicaldata requirements for an application. These tools depict logicalconstructs such as entities, attributes, and relationships betweenentities, along with physical constructs such as database definitionsand table indices.

It is useful for developers to have read-only access to either a hard orsoft copy of the data model during development. This document rapidlybecomes a key discussion document in design discussions. It is useful toshow tables, columns, primary keys, and foreign keys (if all of thiswill fit on a diagram at the same time!) in the document

Graphical depiction is not only useful but essential to data architects,DBAs and also to application developers (the latter group is oftenomitted). As in most cases, a picture speaks a thousand words.

c) Is there a need for consistency in data across applications?

Data modeling tools promote consistency in application development bydefining standard names and attribute characteristics for theapplication data. Application developers then use the standard entityand attribute definitions across various application developmentinitiatives. This results in a consistent definition and usage of data.For example, all applications that require customer number will use thestandard name and attribute length defined in the data model. Databaseadministrators will also use the data model to generate physicaldatabase definitions that are consistent with the application underdevelopment. Thus, the data model acts as a single source for datadefinition.

All applications should have data consistency that is linked back to aset of business data standards. Failure to achieve an agreed set ofdefinitions will jeopardize the ability of the separate applications toperform as a business unit, for example, applications will not be ableto share data if they are in different formats or use different codelookups. Data consistency must be agreed FUNCTIONALLY during analysisand design. Data modeling tools will help to document data definitionsbut they will not automatically enforce data consistency.

d) Are there more than 100 entities in the data model?

At this level of complexity a dedicated data modeling tool is necessary.

Does the system incorporate object oriented methods?

Is a relational database being used to store persistent objects?

Fully normalized data models are a different view of the correspondingobject models. On the one hand, the data model does not show behaviors(methods). On the other hand it does show resolving entities that arenormally modeled as container objects and may be internal to an object.A data modeling tool is useful for showing how the persistent objectsmap to the relational database.

e) Is there a need to communicate the business data requirements withoutregard to the DBMS or platform?

A data model is a technology-independent model of an organization's datarequirements consisting of diagrams and descriptions of entity types,attribute types, relationship types, and integrity constraints. It is aflexible, non-redundant, non-constraining model. As a simplifiedrepresentation of reality, it has no regard for such physical matters ashow data is to be retrieved or how long it will take. The data modelpresents a concept of the business data in an idealized structure. It isa useful tool to communicate the scope of the project.

f) Is the system complex and changing?

Good data modeling requires a full understanding of the business datainvolved. Data modeling becomes more important as systems become morecomplex and sophisticated. The data structures which support suchsystems must be flexible and be able to accommodate change. The datamodel is the best means of identifying and representing these changes.

g) Is database design going to be performed?

The finalized data model is used as a basis for the logical databasedesign. The logical database design converts the finalized Project DataModel to one of four basic structures, according to which DBMS is used:

Hierarchical (rarely used today)

Network (e.g., IDMS)

Relational (e.g., DB2)

Inverted List (e.g., ADABAS)

Although entity-relationship diagrams are independent of specific DBMSsor access methods, a logical database design is not. This design ishighly dependent on the platform components and may need to be repeatedfor each location type and platform type. This process is simplified ifa data model is used.

h) Does the system interface with external systems having their own datadefinitions?

Data modeling tools allow documentation of the data in so far as itappears in the data model (and ultimately in the database). However,there is usually a significant number of other data definitions whichwill never appear in the database, and whose definition is different tothe data model attributes. For example, most systems have interfaces toexternal systems, and inherit a legacy of interface files whose datadefinitions may differ to those on the data model, but which dologically correspond to fields on the model. These data definitions mustalso be documented and stored but are effectively outside the datamodel. The data modeling component should be used to implementprocedures to address all the data definitions that affect the system.

Product Considerations

a) What is the intended use of the tool?

The features required in the data modeling tool will depend on theintended use of the tool. If the tool is to be used to develop logicaldata models, it should support logical constructs such as entitydefinition, attribute definition, subtyping, and supertyping. If thetool is to be used for physical data design, it should support thephysical constructs required for the targeted RDBMs, such astransforming a logical model into a physical model, database definition,index definition, and DDL generation.

b) Does an existing component satisfy this requirement?

The development architecture may already have tools that support datamodeling. For example, many information management tools (repository)provide data modeling capabilities. Using a single tool for multiplefunctions reduces the developer learning curve and provides integrationbetween the components of the development architecture.

c) What other utilities are available with the data modeling tool?

It is important to consider the various utilities available with thedata modeling tools. Two such utilities include impact analysis andreporting. Impact analysis capabilities allow the user to understand theimpact of a change to the data model. Impact analysis functionality isone of the key tools used by engagement teams to assist with changemanagement and change control activities. Some products will alsoinclude report generators which are useful for generating data andattribute definition reports as well as ad hoc reports.

d) Does the development team have any prior experience with datamodeling tools?

A data modeling tool may be chosen based upon prior experience with thetool by the client or members of the engagement team. This reduces thelearning curve associated with integrating a new tool into thedevelopment environment.

e) How well does the data modeling tool integrate with other developmenttools?

Data modeling tools commonly integrate with the repository and withsystem building tools such as window painters and Application LogicDesign tools. If the tool does not provide seamless integration withother components of the development environment, the engagement team canbuild bridges between components, or develop manual procedures in orderto share information. It is important to consider how the data modelingtool integrates with the design repository. It is important to maintaina cross-reference of the attributes on the model, with the definition ofdata elements in the design repository. Such data element definitionswill also address non-database data definitions (e.g. external i/facefiles).

f) What level of data modeling is required?

During the early conceptual design, data modeling need not be verydetailed. It should be a participative, team activity, and is usuallyvery unstable. In this case, a tool such as a white board or PowerPointwill suffice.

As the design becomes more detailed, more sophisticated tools areneeded. At the lowest level of detail consistency is vital and arepository-based tool can be used to ensure consistency across the datamodel.

g) Should the data modeling tool provide database design facilities?

There are some tools which do not incorporate this feature, such asARIS, which is strictly a data modeling tool. This may be helpful toguard against moving too far into the design during the analysis phase.

Most data modeling tools allow you to develop the database design at thesame time. This has the advantage of keeping costs down as two separatetools need not be purchased, and of ensuring consistency by providing adirect interface between the two phases.

h) Does the data modeling tool support submodeling?

Submodeling enables complex models to be broken down into smaller moremanageable and understandable models while still maintaining uniqueobject definition. This is particularly important for large teams wheredata modeling is divided among several teams.

i) Does the data modeling tool provide support for a multi-designerenvironment?

The information management component may provide the security needed ina multi-designer environment. If this is not the case then amulti-designer data modeling tool should be used. The tool may provide acentral dictionary which allows design data to be shared between severaldesigners and includes security checks to monitor any conflicts inoverlapping access rights between designers.

j) Does the tool provide facilities to add color to the data model?

The facility to add color to the data model is useful for communicatingadditional dimensions such as data ownership.

k) Is entity life history required to be documented?

The data modeling tools must support a facility for ELH modeling forentities that have their status changed by a wide range of events. Anyentity which has an attribute containing the word status is a likelycandidate.

l) At what point should inconsistencies in the design be controlled?

Designs should be consistent. However, enforcing internal consistency atall times can lead to design gridlock which prevents innovation orprogress. The tool should support the project decisions regardingconsistency.

Process Modeling

Process modeling tools provide a graphical depiction of the businessfunctions and processes being supported by a system. The tool(s)selected must support the modeling techniques being used in thedevelopment methodology. These include process decomposition, data flow,and process dependency.

Implementation Considerations

a) Are the processes that the system is to support ill-understood or isthere little consensus on what these processes are?

Process modeling is a method for clarifying and communicating thebusiness design of the system. The process model can provide aneffective means of bringing people together, creating a shared vision ofhow the business is to function.

b) Do the processes vary from region to region and need to bestandardized?

A process model provides a means of standardizing a set of similarprocesses which exist, for example, at different branches of thebusiness.

c) Does the project include process re-engineering orprocess-streamlining?

The re-engineered processes in the process model may form a basis forthe systems design which is to come afterwards. Requirements andconstraints for the system design can be well represented andcommunicated in a process model.

d) Is process simulation required?

Advanced process modeling tools provide process simulation capabilities.Process simulation ensures that the process design is adequate as abasis of the functionality of the software that is to be developed.

Product Considerations

a) What approach is to be used for process modeling?

The tool may need to support the creation of business functiondecompositions or data flow diagrams depending on the approach used.

Data flow diagramming is used when the application has a complex orinnovative workflow or if the analysis and design teams have littleexperience with the application.

Business function decomposition is used when the application is fairlyroutine and the team has extensive experience with similar applications.

b) Does another component support procedure diagramming?

A business function decomposition diagram can be produced using aprocedure diagramer.

c) Are common process symbols to be reused?

The tool should provide a facility to create custom symbols for theprocess flow and these should be reusable.

d) Does the tool support the expected size of the process model?

The process model may include hundreds or even thousands of processes.The tool should be able to support the expected size of the processmodel.

e) Does the data flow diagramer support leveling of diagrams?

Some tools allow leveling of the diagram in which a process box on ahigh level diagram is decomposed into multiple processes on alower-level diagram. To ensure that the diagrams are easy to understandand that they easily convey information, it is useful to keep thediagram size to one window or one printed page. The facility to level alarge diagram can help to achieve this.

f) How does the data flow diagramer support data stores that are used bymore than one process?

It is often the case that processes that share a data store cannot beplaced near each other on the diagram. To avoid complicating thediagram, some tools allow data stores to be depicted more than once onthe diagram. The tools may provide facilities to differentiate thesestores from stores that have not been duplicated in this manner.

g) Can control flows be represented by the data flow diagramer?

It may be necessary to depict control flows. The tool may representthese as data flows without any data elements, such as, for example, asignal from a timer function.

h) Does the tool support validation of the diagram?

To ensure that a data flow diagram is complete, each process should haveat least one input and one output. Unless data stores are shared withother systems, each attribute of each data store must have at least oneinput flow associated with it. The tool should facilitate theidentification of exceptions to these general rules.

i) Is a detailed process model with complex processes to be documented?

At the lowest level of a data flow diagram or a business functiondecomposition, there may be processes that are still too complex to beexplained by a label or even a short paragraph. For example, this may bethe case if complex interest rate calculations are to be performed bythe process. An elementary process description may be required for eachsuch process. The process modeling component should include tools thatenable the description to be documented. The description may beformatted as plain English, structured English (resembling pseudo-code),decision tables, or as action diagrams.

Event Modeling

Event modeling tools provide graphical depiction of the events andassociated responses for the system. A variety of tools and techniquescan be used for event modeling, for example, word processors to developsimple textual lists of events and data flow diagramming to show eventsand responses.

For component-based development, event modeling or interaction sequencemodeling may be performed through interaction diagrams, both at theobject and component level. The event model is often used as input fortest scripting.

Implementation Considerations

a) Is there a need to capture the essence of how the business functionswithout becoming tangled in the current sequence of processes?

Event modeling does not fix the sequence of processes. A process startswhen a specified event occurs, and may generate other events when it hasfinished. Event modeling notation allows focus on what steps the processmust do as opposed to “how” it sequences the steps. This form ofrepresentation is especially useful for processes that will bere-engineered, since it allows steps to be re-arranged easily.

b) Is there some uncertainty about the functional requirements or scopeof the system?

An event model represents external actions which the system mustrecognize and responses which the system must produce. Events expressthe system's perception of external activities. Therefore, eventmodeling allows the external environment to influence the requirementsdefinition, rather than basing the environment on the applicationsstructure. This approach supports the applications consistency with theworkflow and other business activities and thus clearly defines thescope of the system.

c) Are the business requirements of the system to be communicated to alarge team or to the users?

An event model represents the user requirements in concise businessterms. When used in conjunction with the process model, this provides aneffective means of communicating the system requirements from thebusiness design team to the systems design team or to the users.

d) Does the architecture have several disjoint systems that need torespond to the same business event?

By using event modeling and a central event router architecture,interfaces to several systems can be easily and flexibly provided. Eachsystem registers itself with the event router and indicates whichbusiness events it is interested in. Whenever an event is triggered, therouter is notified. It then triggers all the applications thatregistered themselves as being interested in that event.

Applications can generate events as required to ensure that appropriatenext steps in the process are performed after they have completed theirpart.

e) Is a real-time system to be developed?

Real-time systems require very strict responses to events withinspecified time frames. Event modeling is critical to ensure thatreal-time systems meet this requirement.

f) Is the extent of change to the business particularly large such thata detailed requirements model is needed?

The requirements model (event, process, and data models) provides aclear means of depicting the system. The requirements model summarizesthe relationship between events, data, and processes. It consists of theevent model, the process model, and the data model. The event model isimportant because it details the business transactions and events enoughto understand the process and data models. Event modeling tools must beprovided to complete the requirements model.

Product Considerations

a) Do other tools provide the required functionality?

Event modeling and process modeling go hand in hand and are typicallyprovided by the same tool.

b) Are events triggered by time easy to represent?

The modeling tools chosen should provide a means of clearly depictingevents that are triggered by time e.g. the year end event.

c) Does an existing component provide all the necessary facilities?

A flow charter is generally required to graphically depict the events.There is also a text description of the events which can be documentedusing a tool such as MS Word® or MS PowerPoint®. Entity life cyclediagrams, Event-Stimulus-Response diagrams or matrices, or Contextdiagrams may be required to complete the model.

d) Is the system complex?

As the number of events increases, the complexity of the event modelincreases and the diagramers may need to support certain facilities suchas intelligent connectors. Simple graphics packages may not suffice atthis level.

Performance Modeling

The performance of a system must be analyzed as early as possible in thedevelopment process. Performance modeling tools support the analysis ofperformance over the network. A simple spreadsheet may be suitable insome well-known and understood environments, but dedicated performancemodeling tools should be considered on any project with high transactionvolumes or complex distributed architectures involving severalplatforms.

In the case of Internet-based applications, as the Internet is not acontrolled environment, performance modeling is limited to thosecomponents within the domain of the controlled environment (i.e. up tothe Internet Service Provider). However, In the case of intranet-basedsystems, where the environment is controlled from end-to-end,performance modeling may be performed across the entire system.

Performance modeling for components involves the analysis of theprojected level of interaction between components and the level ofnetwork traffic generated by this interaction. It is important forperformance reasons that communication between components is minimized,especially if these components are distributed.

Implementation Considerations

a) Is the system complex or heterogeneous?

A performance model ensures that performance requirements are met in acomplex or heterogeneous environment. Performance is usually a criticalquality requirement in such environments.

b) Does the system involve extensive communication over a Wide AreaNetwork?

The complexity involved in designing systems over a WAN makesperformance modeling tools critical to success for such systems.

c) Are there hundreds of users?Are there tens of servers?

Due to the complexity of such systems, performance modeling tools areimportant in ensuring performance requirements are met.

d) Do experience and benchmarks indicate that there may be difficultiesin meeting the performance requirements as stated for the system?

In this case performance modeling tools are critical, since penaltiesmay be incurred if the system does not meet the performancerequirements. A performance model provides a means of deciding early onwhether the system is feasible or not.

e) Is what if analysis required for future growth?

f) Is what if analysis required for alternative hardware configurations?

g) Is what if analysis required for hardware loading?

Performance modeling tools provide a means of analyzing how much futuregrowth or what alternative hardware configurations can be sustainedbefore the system breaks down. This component may be needed even thoughit is obvious that the system will meet the current performancerequirements.

h) Are high transaction volumes or complex architectures expected forthe system?

Dedicated performance modeling tools should be considered for anyproject that involves high transaction volumes or a complex architecturewith several platforms. Performance is critical for such systems and aperformance model is required in order to predict and optimize thatperformance.

Product Considerations

a) Does a generic tool such as a spreadsheet package suffice as aperformance modeling tool?

A specialized performance modeling tool should be used when the systemis complex and involves high volumes of data, or is heterogeneous.

As design progresses from high level conceptual design to detaileddesign, to technical design, there is a corresponding sequence ofactivities involved in performance modeling. As the design becomes moredetailed, so does the performance model. The model may start as a simplespreadsheet and evolve into a collection of spreadsheets with manysheets in each book. As the structure and parameters becomeoverwhelmingly complex, a dedicated modeling tool with its own datamodel, user interface etc. is a good investment.

A performance modeling tool should not be purchased due to a lack ofunderstanding or inexperience of performance modeling, since the toolwill not clarify the issues any more than a spreadsheet model.

b) Does the tool allow empirical data to be fed back into theperformance model?

Performance modeling must be backed up with empirical data at theearliest possible stage. Initially, this will be through performancebenchmarking usually using a small equivalent of the production system.The results should be fed back into the performance models to improvetheir accuracy. There should be a means of differentiating empiricaldata from estimates in the model.

Object Modeling

An object model usually contains the following deliverables:

Class Diagram (1 per functional area or 1 per component)

Class Definition (1 per class)

Class Interaction or Sequence Diagram (1 or more per scenario/workflow)

Class State Transition Diagram (1 per Class with complex state)

Specific modeling tools can provide advantages such as cross referencing(for example, are all the methods used in the Interaction diagramsdescribed in the class definitions?), automatic propagation of changesto other diagrams, generation of reports, and generation of skeletoncode. However, some tools have problems with:

Usability and stability

Single users or small numbers of concurrent users

Proprietary repositories (usually file-based, rather than DB-based)

Support of extensions/customizations

As well as providing the usual editing and graphical functionalities, agood modeling tool should:

Interface with a repository (to support versioning)

Support multiple users

Generate code from the design

The use of UML notation to represent the object model is becoming moreand more common. In this case other diagrams such as Use Cases andCollaborations Diagrams complement the model.

Component Modeling

Component modeling can mean either designing components from scratch, orcustomizing and integrating packaged software. No specific componentmodeling tools exist, and current object modeling tools only offerlimited support for components (e.g. for packaging related classestogether). Class packages can be used to separate the object models fordifferent components, with a separate class package(s) for the componentmodel. This approach, however, is not enforced by current modelingtools, and requires project naming and structuring standards.

When component modeling is being performed using existing packagedsoftware, some form of reverse engineering or importing is required fromthe modeling tool to capture the existing design.

During component design the partitioned component model is designed,which defines physical interfaces and locations for components. It isimportant for performance reasons that communication between componentsis minimized, especially if they are distributed.

Reuse Support

It is during analysis and design that really large savings can beobtained by reusing existing solutions. At this stage, reuse is often atthe subsystem level but can extend down to the service and module level.Asset navigation tools, which permit the retrieval of reusablecomponents, can therefore be of great value.

For a component-based or object-based solution, reuse is usually with aspecific aim. It occurs at different levels and requires different typesof support.

At the analysis and design stage, common classes and components are usedacross applications. Repository management is required that allows easybrowsing and sharing of pieces of design.

During the construction phase, there may be strong interdependenciesbetween the core classes and the components. This must be taken intoaccount when planning the work. When classes and components are beingfixed or modified, impact analysis tools are needed to see where themodified entity is being used. This is more complex than traditionalsystems as a veritable spider's web of dependencies between classes,components, and applications may ensue. In addition, OO features such asinheritance and polymorphism make tracking down dependencies with simpletext search tools much more difficult.

In terms of tools, a class or library browser is required, which allowseasy navigation and identification of candidate components and classes.

In many cases, there can be a mismatch between design and build,especially if no detailed design phase exists. This may result in theexistence of two repositories. The object or component model produced inthe design phase is at a higher level and gives a good introduction oroverview. The actual code, however, is where developers tend to go tofind out how an application really works. When this is the case, thesource code can be used as the detailed design. There are tools thatextract documentation (from comments in a given format) and generateHTML pages. Examples of such tools include:

Java—javadoc,part of the jdk

C++—available from http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/˜kotula/cocoon/cocoon.htm

The ideal situation is a single repository for analysis, design, andcode, allowing developers to move from design to code and vice versa.However, most tools have proprietary repositories and theirimport/export facilities are not sophisticated enough to merge the two.For the moment, source code and design documentation remain two separaterepositories.

Prototyping

It is frequently difficult to obtain specific, reliable, and completerequirements that truly express what users need. This may stem fromusers being unavailable or inexperienced with computer systems, or itmay arise from the nature of the system under design. For example, ifthe system incorporates very new technology, it may be difficult forusers to visualize the possibilities.

Prototyping can address this problem by simulating key user interfacecomponents, thus enabling the development team to measure the usabilityof the proposed system at a very early stage. The most important qualityof a prototyping tool is its development speed. If prototyping can beperformed in hours or days rather than weeks or months, it becomespossible to perform more iterations, which explore different options.This may lead to a much better system, given that the user's perceptionmatures with each iteration. This, in turn, improves the quality of userinput.

Very rapid, low-fidelity prototypes (for example, paper-based) play animportant role in early prototyping. Hi-fidelity prototypes, used lateron in the design process, should be as close to the target system aspossible, and highly detailed—even down to the characteristics of abutton click (e.g. click-down image, click sound, length of click etc.).This way, everyone (including the design teams) can determine exactlywhat the final system should look like.

User involvement at the prototype stage is of the utmostimportance—regular user reviews as the prototype evolves will ensurebuy-in from the users, and avoid unpleasant surprises at later stages ofdevelopment.

Caution must be taken not to raise the expectations of the users interms of the length of time it will take for the final product to bedelivered. Prototyping will deliver something that looks like it “works”very quickly. It should be clear that what is delivered is a model andnot an application. Clients may expect real application functionality tobe developed and delivered quickly due the fast turnaround of theprototyping process, which will invariably not be the case.

Prototypes may also be used to prove architecture concepts (for example,to verify the flow of messages from the client to the host), to ensurethat the system is not based on an architecture that is fundamentallyflawed.

It is important to determine whether to carry forward and extend theprototype, or throw it away after requirements have been determined andperform technical design from scratch. Some prototyping tools offer thepossibility of reusing code from the prototype. Although this is avaluable option, it is often available at the cost of slower prototypedevelopment. An interesting compromise may be to keep portions of theprototype (for example, user interface components) and rebuild othercomponents from scratch.

In component based development, prototyping may be a valuable way ofchecking that component boundaries are well defined. However, thisimplies that the architecture must be defined at the time ofprototyping.

Specific multi-platform prototyping facilities may be required whendeveloping and deploying applications across multiple platforms.

Prototyping functionality is usually included in Integrated DevelopmentEnvironments (IDE).

WARNING: If the prototyping tool used is not part of the executionenvironment, the use of features that are difficult to implement in thetarget environment should be avoided. Prototypes will set userexpectations, which may be difficult to meet once construction starts.Specifically, it is important to ensure that the performance of theprototype does not exceed the projected performance of the targetsystem. If user expectations are built upon a highly-performantprototype, there is the potential of considerable disappointment whenthe final system is rolled out.

Implementation Considerations

a) Will the target system run on multiple platforms?

If so, it may be important to ensure that the prototype also runs onmultiple platforms (particularly if the prototype is a technicalprototype as well as a functional one).

b) Is application performance an important consideration?

Prototyping tools can be used to identify potential performance problemsin an application. A development team can use a prototyping tool toimplement a portion of an application to identify performance problems.The team can then use this information to improve designs and provideguidelines and standards for designs. Thus, prototyping leads to abetter designed and more consistent end product.

c) Do the users have experience with GUIs?

Prototyping tools allow engagement teams to demonstrate the look andfeel of an application to the end user. The tool should be capable ofproviding a realistic understanding of the final application withoutrequiring an extensive construction effort.

Prototypes can be used to interactively gather business requirements anddesign the application with the end user. If the tool supportsinteractive prototyping, changes can be quickly incorporated into theprototype and demonstrated back to the user. This is important whenusers are inexperienced with GUI. Prototyping the look and feel of theapplication and interactively gathering business requirements assist ingaining user acceptance of the system.

d) Are the system requirements ill defined, vague and poorly understood?

A prototype provides a means of communicating what the system isintended to do and can clarify system requirements. The prototype maybecome a throw-away if it becomes clear that the development style ofthe prototype is not conducive to a quality product. It is often morecost effective to start afresh incorporating the added understandingwhich was developed during the prototyping stage.

e) Are the user requirements vague?

It is frequently difficult to obtain specific, reliable, and completerequirements that truly express what users need. Prototyping can solvethis problem by simulating key user interfacing components. Userinterface issues which are detected later are generally costly tochange.

f) Is this a high usage and dedicated system, where throughput matters?

If the system is to be used by dedicated people where the measure ofproductivity is solely the number of transactions they can get throughper second, then user interface prototyping tools are important.Prototyping tools provide a means of getting to the easiest and mostefficient interface. Prototyping tools facilitate selection betweenalternative styles of interaction and provide a means of addressingperformance issues.

g) Do the users have a choice of whether or not to use the system?

User interface prototyping tools are important since they allowdevelopers to obtain user input early on in the GUI design process. Thisinduces user ownership and acceptance of the system.

h) Is user input a criterion for getting the system adopted, such asmight be the case when a union or organized labor is involved?

By using prototyping tools to get user input, ownership and acceptanceof the system is facilitated. Adoption of the system by users andensuring that their expectations are reasonable can make the system lessexpensive to deploy.

i) Does the technical architectural design use new or unfamiliarcomponents or does it use a proven system?

Prototyping the technical architecture provides an ideal way to quicklydetermine if the design is feasible before a major commitment is made toa design that cannot work.

j) Are selected parts of the system to be piloted on the project?

Portions of the application could be selected for design and coding inadvance of the full-scale design/code effort. This will help iron outarchitecture issues, user design preferences, standards,designer/development training requirements, and produce quick wins forthe project which can build morale for the team and client. A prototypecan serve as a means of identifying the portions to be piloted.

k) Are new team members likely to join throughout the project?

A prototype can serve to quickly familiarize new team members with theuser requirements, reducing the ramp-up time for new team members.Project team members should be familiar with the goals and use of asystem in order to effectively develop an application.

l) Is the project management team unfamiliar with the development teamthey will be working with?

Prototyping allows the project management team to judge the capabilitiesof a development team with whom they are unfamiliar. The prototypingeffort allows some preliminary assessment of skill sets.

m) Is there some uncertainty about the product to be used inconstruction?

Prototyping can allow the project team to validate the capabilities andcharacteristics of products which will later be used for development.Many products (PowerBuilder, Visual Basic, etc.) are marketed as beingthe best, but may fall short of project requirements. Use of such toolsduring prototyping allows some “qualification” of a product's truecapabilities. Performance, compatibility with existing clientinfrastructure, etc., can be tested.

Use of a product during prototyping (that is early purchasing) alsoallows a development team to determine the quality of the technicalsupport within the company providing the product. It also allows time towork through some of the business models of those companies (theirwillingness to negotiate on issues, pricing, etc.).

n) Is system performance an important factor?

Prototyping and benchmarking the performance of a technical environmentenables possible performance problems to be identified as early on aspossible.

o) Do the users have little or no experience with the interfacetechnology?

Prototyping serves as a means of introducing the users to the interface.Problems the users may have in working with the interface can beidentified early on, and can be accounted for in training materials thatare developed.

p) Is there a high degree of innovation in the work flow?

Prototyping allows the developers to experiment and, with input fromusers, come up with the best solution to a new and unproven workflow.

q) Do the project team and client fully understand the review andsign-off process?

Prototyping allows the project team and the client to work through theissues and mechanics of the review and sign-off process prior to theintensive development phase.

Product Considerations

a) What is the purpose of the prototype deliverable?

b) Is the deliverable used to document the design of the application orprovide an accurate depiction of the look and feel of the application?

An engagement team should select a prototyping tool to support the levelof detail for the prototype deliverable. Initial application prototypesmay use low-fidelity prototyping techniques (prototypes built using MSPowerPoint or pencil and paper, etc.) in order to document initialwindow designs and determine dialog flow (navigation). Some advantagesof low-fidelity prototyping include little or no learning curve, lack ofstandardization which increases designer creativity, and ease ofmodification. However, this type of prototyping can not provide the userwith the look and feel of the final application. High fidelityprototypes require more sophisticated tools which can provide a morerealistic depiction of the application.

c) Is the prototype demonstrating the application behavior to the users?

d) Is the depiction of application behavior used in developmentdecisions?

A prototyping tool should deliver an accurate depiction of theapplication including window flow and business functions. Theprototyping tool should allow the display of data in a window with thelook and feel of the navigation.

e) Is reusability of prototype deliverables a requirement?

f) What is the objective of the prototype?

Depending on the objectives and timing of the prototype, all or part ofthe prototype deliverable can be reusable during later stages of theapplication development process. Some projects create prototypes in thevery early stages of design to demonstrate the capability of the tooland obtain user acceptance, rather than gathering business requirementsand documenting design based on the requirements. If the objective ofthe prototype is to document designs based upon business requirements,then prototyping tools should be chosen with reuse in mind.

g) Is the prototype used to gather business requirements?

h) Is the prototype developed during Joint Application Design (JAD)sessions with users?

The prototyping tool should be easy to use so the application designercan quickly incorporate changes to the prototype. User input should beincorporated as quickly as possible into the prototype and demonstratedback to the user. This helps to acquire user sign off on the applicationdesign and to gain acceptance of the application.

i) Does the prototyping tool support reuse?

Prototypes often represent a large investment, and in situations where aprototype is successful it should be possible to reuse the prototype inthe remaining construction process.

Although prototyping tools may have the facility to provide reusablecode for the system development, it is often available at the cost ofhaving a slower prototyping tool. The reuse of code may not be a goodidea since some of the design methods used for prototype development maynot be suitable or desirable for application development.

Another option which is supported by some tools is that certainprototyping components can be reused e.g. window definitions. The toolselected for prototyping should allow easy transfer of the requiredcomponents into the development environment.

j) Can the prototyping tool be used to design and build the front end?

The prototyping tool could also be the tool that will be used to designand build the front end. Using the same tool eliminates double entry ofrepository information and reduces the chance of errors when prototypeinformation is transferred to the application design phase of theproject.

k) Does the prototyping tool support functionality not provided by theconstruction tool of choice?

If the prototyping tool provides functionality not available in theconstruction tool then standards need to be put in place to ensure thatthe development team only produce the prototypes using features that canbe implemented in the development environment. The amount of additionaleffort required to develop features that are easy to implement with theprototyping tool but which require work-arounds in the construction toolshould be a consideration. Prototyping features which cannot bedelivered will result in failure to meet user expectations.

Application Logic Design

Application Logic Design tools are used to graphically depict anapplication. These tools include application structure, moduledescriptions, and distribution of functions across client/server nodes.

A variety of tools and techniques can be used for Application LogicDesign. Examples are structure charts, procedure diagrams (module actiondiagrams), and graphics packages to illustrate distribution of functionsacross client and server.

Application Logic Design functionality is also provided by a number ofIntegrated Development Environments (IDEs). (see Tools—SystemBuilding—Construction)

With component-based development, Application Logic Design is performedthrough object and component modeling. The functionality is captured inuse cases, scenarios, workflows and/or operations diagrams along withinteraction diagrams/sequence diagrams (See Object DevelopmentMethodology for samples of deliverables). These are usually producedusing an object modeling tool.

Implementation Considerations

a) Is there a need for logic representation?

Use Application Logic Design tools to graphically depict the logic of anapplication. This is a common requirement on most engagements.

b) Is there some uncertainty about the validity of the business case?

The Application Logic Design tools provide a means of confirming thecomplexity estimates and hence facilitate a revision of estimates beforegoing into construction. By confirming the validity of the complexityestimates, the business case is also confirmed. It is at this stage thatthe decision is made whether or not to continue with construction.

c) Is performance modeling required?

Application Logic Design tools can provide a basis for performancemodeling, based on the processing ability of the CPU, parallelism, andpipelining. The tools can be used to graphically depict systemcomplexity, from which a performance model can be derived.

d) Is the programming team inexperienced?

Application Logic Design tools provide a vehicle for communication fromdesigner to programmer. This is particularly important when programmersare relatively inexperienced and need detailed guidance, which comesfrom the detailed design that is documented using these tools.

e) Is system maintenance part of the project definition?

Application Logic Design tools, and the designs that they contain,provide documentation of the system which will support maintenance inthe long run. If the maintenance team is very experienced, or if thesystem is a throw-away prototype, which will not be reused or maintainedin the future, then Application Logic Design tools may not be required.

Product Considerations

a) Should the engagement team build a custom Application Logic Designtool or purchase an existing one?

Engagement teams must determine whether standard design templatesprovided by vendors meet project needs, or if the architecture mustprovide custom solutions. CASE tools tend to provide standardApplication Design documentation. Most custom solutions utilize wordprocessing tools to build Application Logic Design shells for use bydevelopment teams.

b) Are several tools to be used to provide Application Logic Designfacilities?

A single tool may not provide all the facilities required. The differenttools must interface with one another in order to promote consistency ofthe Application Logic Designs.

c) Does an existing tool provide the required functionality?

The development team may require facilities to produce procedurediagrams, flowcharts, or pseudocode. These facilities may already beprovided by existing tools, for example, pseudocode can generally beproduced by an application development tool.

d) Does the Application Logic Design tool reflect the close relationshipbetween application logic and the user interface?

In a good GUI program design, the application logic is often closelylinked to the user interface. A single design document capable ofcapturing this relationship could serve as a key input into theprogramming process. Traditional tools only provide separatepresentation design and application processing module design documents.

Database Design

Database design tools provide a graphical depiction of the databasedesign for the system. They enable the developer to illustrate thetables, file structures, etc., that will be physically implemented fromthe logical data requirements. The tools also represent data elements,indexing, and foreign keys.

Many data design tools integrate data modeling, database design, anddatabase construction. An integrated tool will typically generate thefirst-cut database design from the data model, and will generate thedatabase definition from the database design.

With an object-based or component-based solution the data modeling taskchanges. In most cases, relational databases are still used, even wherethere are no dependencies on legacy systems. As there is an ‘impedancemis-match’ between an object model and a data model, a mapping activitymust be undertaken. There are standard mechanisms for doing this.

There is a tendency (especially when dealing with legacy systems) totreat data models and object models the same. It is important torecognize that at best, the data model represents only the static partof the object model and does not contain any of the transient or dynamicaspects. The physical data model may also change significantly (for DBoptimization), further confusing the issue.

There can be performance problems with objects mapped to a relationaldatabase. In a worst case scenario, an object can be spread across manytables, with a single select/insert for each table, and as each objectis loaded one by one, the performance becomes very poor. Some toolsprovide lazy initialization (only loading the parts as they are needed)and caching (minimizing DB hits).

The current trend seems to be for object-relational databases, withvendors such as Oracle adding object features to their core products.Although the support provided at the moment is limited, it is likelythat in future versions Java or C++ classes will be able to interfacedirectly.

Implementation Considerations

a) Do the design ideas need to be communicated to a large team ofdevelopers?

Database design tools are important where design ideas must becommunicated to the development team. Where the development team exceedsten people, this design must be formalized. Database design toolsprovide a graphic depiction of the database design for a system, whilstat the same time enabling the developer to illustrate tables and otherstructures that will be implemented physically.

b) Is system performance a major consideration?

Database design tools become especially important if performance iscritical, since database design contributes substantially to the overallperformance of the system. Database design tools provide quantifiableperformance data which is a crucial component of the overall performancemodel.

Database Design tools also provide a means to model I/O on devices suchas hard disks, optical drives, and tapes etc. This information can beused in a performance model.

c) Does the project have multiple teams working on multiple functionaldomains?

The database design component is important in the case where multipleteams are working on different functional domains, since they oftenmodel different parts of the database separately and then incorporatethese models at the end into one large database model. Database designtools can be used to enforce consistency of the different databasedesigns.

d) Does the database include a very large number of tables and elements?

Navigation through a large number of tables is complicated and can besimplified significantly if dedicated database design tools are used.

e) Are there likely to be conflicting system requirements?

Different teams or users may have different requirements which conflict.These requirements may have to be rationally traded-off against eachother. Where these requirements are performance related, the trade-offcan only be rationalized on the basis of a good database model.

Product Considerations

a) Does the product provide the following features?

Support for definition of DBMS advanced features (e.g. triggers, storedprocedures, replication, application logic, application generation,referential integrity)

Support for versioning and change control

Cross platform and DBMS integration

b) Should the database design tools support database construction?

Many database design tools allow for database construction. Such toolsmay help translate a logical database design into a physical design, orthey may generate Data Definition Language (DDL) code or DataManipulation Language (DML) code. The advantage of using a tool thatprovides this facility is that it simplifies the transfer of designinformation into a physical representation and can be used to ensureconsistency from design into construction of the database.

Presentation Design

Presentation design tools provide a graphical depiction of thepresentation layer of the application, such as windows, dialogs, pages,navigation and reports. Tools in this category include window editors,report editors, and dialog flow (navigation) editors. Window editorsenable the developer to design the windows for the application usingstandard GUI components. Report editors enable the developer to designthe report layout interactively, placing literals and application dataon the layout without specifying implementation details such as pagebreaks. The majority of these tools generate the associated applicationcode required to display these components in the target system.

Dialog flow (navigation) editors enable the developer to graphicallydepict the flow of the windows or screens.

The Control-Action-Response (CAR) diagram is a commonly used techniquefor specifying the design of GUI windows. It is typically developedusing a matrix or spreadsheet tool such as Microsoft Excel.

The majority of Netcentric systems use Web browsers to provide a commoncross-platform user interface. Presentation design for this type ofenvironment therefore entails the generation of HTML pages, often withadditional components (JavaScript, 3rd party ActiveX controls, Plug-ins)providing enhanced functionality or media content. Many tools arecurrently available for designing and creating web content, althoughHTML remains the common denominator, at the very least as a placeholderfor the content.

In the case of systems published on the Internet, defining the targetaudience is less straightforward than in traditional systems, butequally important. Having a good understanding of the intended audiencewill be a big advantage when thinking about user interaction with thesystem, and therefore, the presentation layer of the system.

Implementation Considerations

a) Does the project want to use a single tool for prototyping and GUIdesign?

Presentation design tools provide the ability to use a single tool forboth prototyping and GUI design. This decreases the learning curveduring design and permits components of the prototype to be reused.

b) Are user requirements clearly defined?

c) Are numerous iterations of design anticipated?

These tools make application development easier and faster throughpoint-and-click capabilities and built-in functions. Reduction in theoverall presentation layer design/development effort allows for moredesign iterations, and thus more chances for user feedback.

d) Has a specific construction tool been selected for the project?

If the tool to be used for construction is not known at design time thenspecific tools for presentation design are needed.

e) Is the design complex?

f) Does the design have to be presented to multiple users?

g) Do the users have conflicting interests?

h) Does the design have to be signed off?

i) Does the design have to be maintained over time?

In these cases a dedicated presentation design tool can be used toprovide maintainable documentation of the presentation design which canbe used to clarify and communicate issues.

Product Considerations

a) How much does the tool cost?

Product components, maintenance agreements, upgrades, run-time licenses,and add-on packages should be considered.

b) Will the design tool be used for programming of client applications?What programming language is supported?

If the design tool is used for programming, there are several featuresof a tool that must be considered. These features can have an impact onthe productivity of programmers, performance of the applications, skillsets required, and other tools required for development. These featuresinclude:

What programming language is supported? Is the programming languageinterpretive or compiled? Is it object oriented or a structuredprocedural language?

Does the tool support programming extensions to Dynamic Link Libraries?

What are the debugging capabilities of the tool?

c) Will the tool be used with a large development team?

If the development team is more than 5 people, a tool should providesupport for multiple developers. This support includes features such asobject check-in/check-out, a central design repository for the storageof application objects and user interface definitions, and versioncontrol. Additionally, the development team should be able to cleanlydivide the application(s) into pieces that can be worked on by multipledevelopers.

d) If the tool is also going to be used for application development, howwell does the tool perform during production?

Computational, network, data retrieval, and display speeds differ forproducts. Factors to consider are whether the application will consistof heavy data entry, transaction processing, or a large user base.

Does the product integrate with other tools and/or support other toolsin the development and execution environments?

It is important to determine how well the product integrates with otherdesign and development tools, presentation services (graphics,multi-media, etc.), data access services (databases and database APIlibraries), distribution services (distributed TP monitor), transmissionservices (SNA, HLLAPI, etc.), data dictionary, desktop applications, andprogramming languages for call-out/call-in. Additional considerationshould be given to add-on and third-party products/enhancements such asspecialized widgets, report writers and case tools.

e) Is the tool scalable?

The tool should be scalable to support growth in application size,users, and developers.

f) What functions are required in the control set?

At the minimum, a tool should support basic widgets (push buttons, listboxes, etc.), window styles, (multi-window, multi-document,paned-window), and menu styles, along with validation andinter-application communication. Consideration should also be given asto the extensibility of the toolset via add-ons and third partyproducts.

g) What databases are supported?

h) What protocols are used to communicate with the database?

Important considerations include the supported databases and protocolsused to communicate with the databases. The tool must support theselected database. Additionally, if database selection may change, it isimportant that the tool have the ability to support other databases withminimal impact on the application development. Native databaseinterfaces tend to have better performance than open standards such asODBC.

i) What level of technical support, documentation, and training isrequired to ensure the productivity of developers?

The extent of support (on-site, phone, bulletin board, world-wide,etc.), quality of documentation, and availability and location ofeducation/training should be considered.

j) What type of learning curve is associated with the tool?

Developers using the product should be able to become productivequickly. Factors which reduce the learning curve include an easy tolearn and intuitive interface, thorough and clear documentation, andon-line help.

k) Can the tool be used for both prototyping and GUI design?

The ability to use a single tool for both prototyping and GUI designwill reduce the development learning curve. Tool integration with allother development tools should also be considered.

l) What platform(s) are supported?

The platform(s) that must be supported, i.e., MS-DOS, Windows, IBM OS/2,UNIX, or UNIX Motif, are an important consideration, as are any hardwarerestrictions.

m) Is there a need for consistency across multiple screens or windows?

Some presentation design tools provide the facility for reuse ofelements. This can be used to enforce consistency across multiplescreens and can accelerate development. This feature is not available inlow-end presentation design tools, such as MS PowerPoint.

One means of ensuring reuse is for the tool to support a central libraryof predefined widgets or screen elements. This library should beextendible and customizable, allowing developers to create newwidget/element definitions or to enhance existing ones.

n) Is multi-language support a consideration?

Special characters, differences in field lengths, and differences innumber formats are some of the things that contribute to the complexityof a multi-language application. Window and report design are among theareas affected by differences in the language used for presentation.

Strategies on how windows are displayed are affected if multi-languagesupport is a requirement. Are separate windows painted for each languageor are window literals dynamically replaced? The former will producewindows that are more visually appealing but requires more significanteffort to create and maintain.

The presentation design tools should facilitate documentation of thesedifferences for design purposes and allow the design strategies to beimplemented.

o) Is the tool integrated with the repository of choice?

The presentation design tools should be tightly integrated with thesystem components stored in the repository, such as windows, reports,screens, and other more abstract models to ensure consistency.

p) Is a multi-media application to be developed?

Touch screen hotspots, video clips, hypertext, pointer device hotspotsand other similar design objects must be supported by the presentationdesign tool if the design is for a multimedia application.

Communication Design

An increasingly important aspect of system design is communicationdesign. After the fundamental communication paradigms have been chosen,each exchange must be designed to allow for the detailed design of eachmodule (clients, services, functions), and to lay the basis for morerefined performance modeling. To ensure against interface problems,these tools should be tightly integrated with the design repository. Onesimple way to document communication interfaces is to define includefiles, which hold the interface definitions.

Implementation Considerations

a) Is performance simulation or modeling required?

Thorough performance simulation or modeling requires a communicationmodel. A performance model is particularly important if the system islarge, heterogeneous, and complex.

A valid performance model can only be created once a detailedcommunication design has been developed for the system. The performancemodel is derived from the detailed communication design. Communicationdesign tools provide a means of documenting the physical design of thesystem, such as protocol stacks, message sizes, routers, bridges,gateways, LANs, WANs, MANs, etc. as well as the logical design, both ofwhich are used to develop the performance model and to simulateperformance.

b) Is the system migrating from a central to a distributed environment?

c) Is the system migrating from a LAN to a WAN environment?

d) Is the system migrating from a country wide WAN to a global network?

When development takes place in a mainframe environment, performance isrelatively predictable. In a distributed environment, response time isdependent on the communication design.

Migrating from a LAN to a WAN, or from a WAN to a global network willdrastically impact the performance of the system, and this type ofmigration requires the development of a complete communication designfrom which a performance model can be derived. Thus, tools to facilitatethe communication design become a critical part of the developmentarchitecture when migration of this sort is involved.

e) Is high network performance required?

Communication design tools are essential in developing systems wherecritical business operations have to have maximum availability andminimum down time. One of the primary contributing factors to highperformance in client/server environments is a good network design. Agood network design can only be achieved through a good communicationdesign.

Product Considerations

a) Is the tool repository based?

The best support for detailed communication design for a largedevelopment team is provided by a repository. Here the messages, calls,and queries can be modeled and designed as entities in their own right.These entities provide a necessary basis for performance and moduledesign, which can be shared by all developers.

b) Is there a need for a graphical depiction of the communicationdesign?

A graphical depiction of the communication design may be required. Forsimple designs, tools such as PowerPoint are normally adequate. Dataflow diagrams may be used to show how clients send messages to services.The tools used should help developers to ensure that objects in thediagrams are linked to the actual objects (Windows, Services, etc.) inthe repository. This will maintain consistency of the designdocumentation with the actual objects used in development.

c) Do existing tools provide the necessary functionality required toproduce the communication design for the project?

A simple and effective method of defining interfaces is by using includefiles to hold the interface definitions. The application developmenttools usually provide this facility.

A spreadsheet package such as Excel may also be used to design messagelayouts. For simple graphical depictions of the communication design, atool such as PowerPoint is adequate.

d) Does the tool encapsulate knowledge of the services provided by themiddleware layer?

The middleware layer provides the basic functions for applications in aheterogeneous environment to interface with operating systems, networksand communication protocols.

If the tools used encapsulate knowledge of the middleware services, lowlevel design of communication (e.g. designing at the level of namedpipes and sockets) need not be supported or investigated. The middlewarecomponent abstracts this level of detail so that the designers need notconcern themselves with complex technical issues.

Usability Test

From a development perspective, systems that are designed and testedwith usability in mind offer clear advantages. This is providingUsability Testing is executed from the user perspective, and from thevery beginning of the development process. Usability Testing can helpdevelopers:

Reduce risk by confirming that they are building the right solution

Identify new system requirements

Decrease development time and money by reducing rework

Achieve a smoother conversion, with less disruption to business

Each system is designed to meet the unique requirements of its users,and therefore benefits from a different mix of testing techniques. Inmany cases, designers find that the best starting point is to build andtest low-fidelity prototypes (see Tools—System Building—Analysis &Design—Prototyping). These are paper-and-pencil versions of userinterfaces that allow developers to demonstrate the behavior of systemsvery early in development. Before any code has been written, developersbuild prototypes on paper and test them with real users, simulating thehuman-computer interaction. Designs are adjusted and retested severaltimes until a usable solution emerges. When it is time to begin coding,developers already have an excellent idea of how the system should workand what the users want.

Once the user interface has been coded, the high-fidelity prototype isready for online usability testing. The test results are compared withprevious tests and routed back to the developers. If lo-fi prototypeswere used earlier, the major design issues have already been resolved.Refinements at the “hi-fi” stage should focus on perfecting the details.

In the later stages of development, usability laboratories can beextremely helpful for evaluating system design. Usability labs, whichcan be stationery or portable, rely on videotape and screen capturemethods to record how users interact with prototype systems. Within afew hours of testing, lab administrators can create a highlightsvideotape of problems that users encountered. These tapes can be usedimmediately by developers and project managers to modify the hi-fiprototype as required. The average usability test results in 70 to 100specific recommendations for improvement.

Remote testing, or telecasting, is an online variation of the usabilitylab. This still-emerging method relies on computer networks to conductsystem evaluations. Remote testing enables developers to test a largenumber of users efficiently and without incurring travel expenses.

Reverse Engineering (230)

Reverse engineering tools are used to capture specific, relevantfunctional and design information from a legacy system for use in a new,client/server system or to restructure the existing system for improvedperformance and maintenance.

Interactive Navigation

Developers use interactive navigation tools to identify requirements fora new system from the functionality and design of a legacy system. Thesetools enable the developer to interactively and graphically navigate thelegacy system, determining the system's characteristics such as systemstructure, module flow, flow control, calling patterns, complexity, anddata and variable usage. An alternate form of presentation is throughreports. These provide cross-reference listings or graphicalrepresentations of control or data flows.

Graphical Representation

Graphical representation tools are used to display important systeminformation in a form, which is easier to assimilate. These tools may,for example, produce structure charts, database schema diagrams, anddata layouts. They can also print matrices that indicate relationshipsbetween modules and files or between jobs and programs.

Extraction

An extraction tool, in conjunction with a repository population tool,enables the developer to reuse selected portions of a legacy system. Theextraction tool can typically read and extract information from sourcecode, screens, reports, and the database. The most common informationextracted from a legacy system, however, is the data: record/tablestructure, indexes, and data element definitions.

In component-based architectures, as systems are often built on top oflegacy databases, some extraction tools allow generation of an objectmodel from the legacy database data model (DDL). By understanding theE-R diagram represented by the database, it is easier to create anefficient persistence framework which isolates business components froma direct access to relational databases. Caution is required, however,as the resulting model is at best only partial, as an object model hasdynamic aspects to it as well as static relationships, and may notcorrectly reflect the analysis performed in the problem domain.

Repository Population

The repository population tool is used to load the information from theextraction tool into the development repository. These tools convert theinformation from the legacy system into the syntax of the developmenttools repository. The extent of the information loaded into therepository is a function of the Information Model of the developmenttool repository. Information that is not represented in the developmenttool repository cannot be loaded into the repository.

Restructuring

Restructuring tools are not analysis tools like the previous categoriesof reverse engineering tools, but design and construction tools. Theyenable the developer to rebuild a legacy system, rather than replace it.Examples of this type of process include restructuring spaghetti codewith structured code, replacing GOTO's, streamlining the module callingstructure, and identifying and eliminating dead code.

Data Name Rationalization

Data name rationalization tools extract information on variable usageand naming, and show relationships between variables. Based on theserelationships and user input, these tools can then apply uniform namingstandards throughout the system.

Packaged Component Integration (232)

Packaged components are generally third party components that provideready-made business logic that is customizable and reusable. These canrange from simple components offering limited functionality (forexample, worksheet or charting GUI components), to components thathandle a significant portion of the application architecture (forexample, data access components and firewalls). The advantage of usingsuch components is that they have already been coded, tested, optimized,and documented.

The fact that these components come from third-party software housesdoes not always guarantee their quality. In order to minimize thedependency of the final system on these components (thus reducing theimpact of possible changes within the libraries), it is recommended thatwrappers are written to enclose any third-party components. This way, ifany changes are made to the internals of the components, only thewrappers would be affected, allowing the application and architecturecode to remain unchanged.

Product Considerations

a) Does the component require significant customization?

When selecting components, it is important to get as close a match aspossible to the functionality that is required.

b) Will the vendor guarantee required functional enhancements?

If functionality is missing from a component that cannot be added usingthe standard customization tools provided, it is vital to get a vendorguarantee that the enhancements will be made, and to agree on a deadlinefor these enhancements.

c) Will the vendor guarantee consistency of all interfaces across futurereleases?

The biggest danger in using packaged components is that the vendor willmake changes to the component interfaces. When selecting packagedcomponents make sure the vendor guarantees backwards compatibility ofall the existing interfaces provided by the component. If this is notthe case, it will entail much reworking of the application code in orderto be able to take advantage of (potentially important) upgrades to thecomponent.

d) What are the performance implications of using a packaged component?

Components are often developed with a preferred platform in mind.Components optimized for one platform may have severe performanceproblems on others. If performance is a factor (and it nearly always is)ensure that components are designed specifically for the platform of thetarget system.

e) Does the component provide standard or proprietary interfaces?

When choosing between packaged components, always choose standardinterfaces over proprietary ones. It will always be easier to customizeand interface a component whose language is known to the developmentteam, rather than one which requires developers to learn a newproprietary language.

Customization

Packaged components usually do not provide the exact functionality thatis required of the target system because they are created by thirdparties. They may have to be configured in order to behave in thedesired fashion. The majority of packaged components allow one of twomethods of customization—either by using standard construction tools(such as an editor and a C compiler), or by using proprietary toolkitsprovided by the vendor.

Implementation Considerations

a) What level of support is provided by the component vendor?

It is vital that the vendor provides an appropriate level of support forthe component such as documentation, telephone support, remote support,training, and onsite support. It might also be necessary to includevendor developers on the Application team. This is especially importantwhere component customization relies on proprietary toolkits.

Construction (234)

Construction tools are used to program or build the application: clientand server source code, windows, reports, and database. Along with theonset of Visual Programming, the more traditional form of constructiontools have been superceded by Integrated Development Environments (IDEs)which take all the basic components required for construction, andintegrate them into a single system. Although IDEs are now the preferredtools for most construction, the components that make up these toolsremain the same—Source Code Editor, Compiler/Linker/Interpreter,Generation Tools and Debugging Tools.

Visual Programming tools, initially associated with the rapiddevelopment of the client-side of client/server applications, have nowmatured and expanded their domain to cover entire client/serverdevelopment (e.g. Visual C++) and Netcentric development (e.g. visualJava IDEs).

IMPORTANT: While IDEs provide the basic components for construction, notall the functionality offered by the components listed here is provided(for example IDEs do not generally provide Help text generation or DDLgeneration). IDEs can usually be customized in a way that other tools(Version Control, Generation, Repository Access etc.) can be integrated.It is necessary to plan time for this upfront. It should not be left tothe developers to do this individually. In addition to the standardconstruction components, a new set of utilities exist which can helpincrease the quality of code generated by developers. QA Utilitiesverify the quality of constructed code, and its conformance to standardsset down for the development environment.

It is important to ensure that developers use tools that are standard tothe development environment. Now that Internet access is a standardfacility for developers, there may be the tendency for people todownload their own preferred tools, or upgrades to standard tools. Thisnot only affects the management of the development environment, butcould easily result in the generation of code that is incompatible withthe rest of the code in the development system (for example, considerthe effect of developers on the same team using tools which employdifferent version of the JDK).

Product Considerations

a) What size is the development team?

When IDEs were first developed, they were targeted at individualdevelopers. This means that support for team development is still notfully mature in the majority of IDEs, although some are closelyintegrated with third-party configuration management packages. Whenselecting an IDE it is important to ensure that team development issufficiently catered for.

b) On what platform is the system expected to run?

c) Is the target system expected to run on multiple platforms?

The construction tools selected must be able to support the targetplatform(s) of the system to be developed.

Source Code Editor

A source code editor is used to enter and edit source code for theapplication. Complexity varies from simple ASCII text editors to fullyintegrated editors such as those provided by Integrated DevelopmentEnvironments. Typically however, they are linked with a debugger so thatcoding errors which are identified during compilation can be more easilycorrected, since the error and the source code generating the error canbe viewed simultaneously.

Other features include:

Dynamic syntax checking, improving productivity by detecting errors asthey are made, rather than at compile time.

Color coding, which automatically applies different colors to textdepending on its type or context (e.g. comments, variables, reservedwords etc.), thus making the code more readable.

Automatic layout, which indents code depending on its logical level(e.g. loops, conditionals etc.)

On the whole, these features will help ensure that code developed by theteam is following project standards as opposed to individual programmingstyles.

Implementation Considerations

a) Web-based development

Due to the tendency of Web-based applications to combine multiplecomponents (such as HTML, Javascript, Java applets, CGI scripts etc.),numerous source code editors may be required for the development of anysingle web application.

Product Considerations

a) How well integrated is the editor with other tools in the developmentenvironment?

The level of integration with the rest of the environment is animportant consideration when selecting a source code editor. Mosteditors now come as part of an IDE, and are therefore fully integrated.

b) Does the editor support multiple languages?

Some IDEs provide support for many languages using the same interface(for example, MS Developer Studio supports C, C++, Java, Fortran). Thishas the advantage of providing the user with a common approach tocoding, regardless of the language being used.

c) What features are provided by the editor?

As mentioned in the component description, many features may be providedby the editor, which can save time and improve code quality. Afeature-rich editor is therefore often worth the investment.

d) Is the product easy to learn and use?

The source code editor should be easy to use with little or no trainingrequired.

e) Is an acceptable source code editor already provided by the operatingsystem or other tools in the development environment?

Most Development tools and operating systems already include a sourcecode editor. These source code editors are usually just simple texteditors.

f) What is the amount of the application code?

Some source code editors may not have the ability to handle extremelylarge files while other tools are built specifically for that purpose.

Compiler/Linker/Interpreter

This component is responsible for taking raw code (usually in ASCIIformat) and creating the necessary object, library, byte-code, orexecutable files that become components of the final system. The actualtools required depend on the development language, but always consist ofone or a combination of the following components:

Compiler

Linker (preferably incremental—the linker can substitute a new versionof a single module rather than having to re-link the entire program)

Interpreter, which can speed up the test/correct cycle by eliminatingthe compile and link steps

In the majority of Integrated Development Environments, the Compiler,Linker and/or Interpreter are included as an integral part of thesystem. In addition, the management of compilation and linking isautomated using MAKE utilities which understand the dependencies betweenmodules in the system. This allows the system to trigger all necessaryre-compilation and re-linking when a module in the system is changed,thus avoiding the time consuming task of re-compiling and re-linking theentire system.

Product Considerations

a) Is the tool easy to use?

The tool should be relatively easy to use in order to reduce thelearning curve.

b) Does the tool support the platform in the development environment?

The compiler/linker/interpreter tool must be compatible with all theplatforms upon which the application is being developed. Besidescompatibility, tool performance may be platform dependent.

Source Code Debugger

A source code debugger is a tool used to unit test a program. This toolprovides information about the activity of programs and systems,enabling automatic analysis and diagramming, assisted code tracing,editing capabilities, and automatic documentation. The debugger allowsthe developer to enter program break points and step through a program,tracking the progress of execution and identifying errors interactively.It is typically used in conjunction with the source code editor so thatcoding errors identified can be more easily corrected, since the errorand the source code generating the error can be viewed simultaneously.

Symbolic source code enables easier identification of where errorsoccur. Preferably, the debugger should be flexible enough to work withany combination of compiled modules and source modules. In addition, thedebugger should be able to handle calls to the database and to othermodules.

Product Considerations

a) What testing team factors should be considered when using a sourcecode debugging tool?

Communication between development team and testing team:

A code analysis tool can help the testing team detect unreported changesin the application code, and therefore help alleviate possible badcommunications between the development and testing teams. Thus, badcommunications between teams will still influence positively thedecision to use code analysis tools.

Generation

Generation tools include:

Shell generation

Make file generation

Window/page generation

Data Definition Language (DDL) generation

Data Manipulation Language (DML) generation

Code generation

Include file generation

Help text/module description generation

Trace code generation

Shell generation is the process of generating a starting point forprogramming. Shell generation is typically repository-based but can alsobe based on interaction with the programmer, where the generationutility requests key information about the program, and generates astarting point as a result of this. Key information (whether obtainedfrom the repository or through a dialog with the programmer) mayinclude:

Data base tables accessed

Methods and attributes defined (for objects)

Interface information

Based on this information, the generator selects the appropriate includefiles and creates skeleton code which may be used as a template for theprogrammer. This template may also include audit history for the moduleand standard code such as error handling.

Make file generation is integrated into the majority of IDEs

Window/page generation (which is an integral component of Visualprogramming tools) allows the developer to rapidly design windows andpages using a point and click graphical interface. The relevant sourcecode is subsequently generated from these designs.

The generation of DDL and DML is often hidden from the developer byusing data access functions or objects, provided by a large proportionof IDEs (e.g. MFC, JDK) Help text and module description generation (notusually provided by IDEs) analyzes developer's raw code (includingcomments) and creates descriptions which may be used by developers tounderstand the contents of modules or objects. This is particularlyuseful for component-based development, where methods and attributes ofobjects may be automatically documented.

Trace code generation allows the insertion of traces into raw code inorder to aid debugging.

Implementation Considerations

a) Does the project want to isolate developers from the technicalenvironment as much as possible?

b) Are there a large number of developers which makes it difficult toenforce standards and consistency among developers?

Generators are typically used to enforce and maintain consistencythroughout an application. The main benefit is a reduction in training.In addition, the code generated will automatically be checked forerrors, shielding the developers from many complexities of the technicalenvironment.

c) Are there a large number of developers or a large amount of code?

d) Can significant time be saved by creating generators to generate codefor reuse and regenerated code to propagate changes?

Generators are used to leverage the powers of code reuse and coderegeneration. The ability to reuse code reduces both the time andresources required on a project. Code regeneration eases maintenanceissues by propagating changes throughout multiple sections of code.

Product Considerations

a) Can the generation tool provide code which meets performancerequirements?

The code/applications generated by the tools vary in performance.Optimized code usually results in faster run times. It is important toidentify the high priority components that will benefit most from thetool.

b) Should the engagement team build a custom generation tool or purchasean existing one?

The decision to custom build or to buy available case tools must bedetermined by the development team. Most generators are usually custombuilt because often the technical environment and architecture havecustom components that cannot be handled by a package generator.Associated with custom building are the issues of added cost anddevelopment time, but performance can be closely monitored and changesperformed on the spot.

c) Does the generation tool support the development and executionplatforms?

The tool must support the current or proposed platform.

QA Utilities

QA Utilities verify the quality of completed code, and that it conformsto project and international standards. These types of tools include thefollowing:

Code Analysis—Code analysis provides the objective information andmetrics needed to monitor and improve code quality and maintenance (e.g.static analyzer, documentor, auditor).

Code Error Checking—Checks code for common errors (e.g. syntax errors,uninitialized and badly assigned variables, unused variables)

Code Beautification—Re-formats code in order to make it easier to readand maintain.

UNIX Portability Checking—Checks compliance with basic portabilitystandards—particularly with programming standards that ensureportability across UNIX platforms (e.g. POSIX compliance andOS/2-to-Windows portability).

100% Pure Java Checking—Checks that Java code conforms to the 100% PureJava standard.

Code/Object Libraries

Code and Object libraries provide the developer with ready-madecomponents (such as GUI components or simple utilities), which may beintegrated into architecture or application code. The advantage of usingsuch components is that they have already been coded, tested, optimized,and documented.

Code and Object libraries may be differentiated from packaged componentsin two ways:

They contain little or no business logic

Source code is usually provided (as opposed to the ‘black box’ componentapproach)

That these libraries come from third-party software houses does notalways guarantee their quality. In order minimize the dependency of thefinal system on these components (thus reducing the impact of possiblechanges within the libraries), it is recommended that wrappers arewritten to enclose any third-party code. This way, if any changes aremade to the libraries, only the wrappers would be impacted, allowing theapplication and architecture code to remain unchanged.

Implementation Considerations

a) Does the object/library really need to be wrapped?

It may not always be prudent to wrap all third party objects/code thatare to be used on a project. Sometimes the cost involved may outweighthe value of wrapping an object/code. As objects/code become morecomplex, with more functions/interfaces, then the value of wrapping thembecomes more tangible.

Media Content Creation

As systems become increasingly user-facing, it is important to designuser interfaces that are not only functional, but also engaging andinformative. This is especially true of Internet and kiosk-basedsystems, where users have a notoriously short concentration span.

This requirement for more attractive user interfaces has triggered theevolution of media-rich applications, the development of which requiresnew tools and processes, and brings with it a whole new set of issues.

Media content can be broken down into three major media types, each withits own set of tools:

2D/3D Images/Animation

Video

Audio

2D/3/D Images/Animation

Tools to handle these images range from simple paint packages to highlycomplex multi-layered animation graphics packages. The images created bythese tools may be pixel-based (bitmaps) or vector-based, each withtheir own advantages.

Pixel-based tools (traditional graphics and image processing tools)offer more image flexibility especially in terms of color gradation andshading, but produce relatively large files. This format is thereforeuseful where the use of high quality textured images, or highly coloredimages is important, but where file storage and transmission is not anissue (where the media content is local to the client application, suchas in a kiosk).

Vector-based tools (where the image is defined by formulae rather thanpixel position) offer much smaller file sizes, and dynamic imagere-sizing, while producing excellent print quality, but cannot easilyhandle shading and color gradation. This format is more appropriatewhere file size is an issue (web pages).

Video

The high cost and complexity of video production equipment, along withthe skills required to manage the process of video production mean thatit is usually outsourced to a third party. It is important however thatthe personnel charged with creating video content are an integral partof the Application team.

Audio

The tools required for creating audio content depend on the qualityrequired, and whether or not the content is original. For ‘soundbites’or pre-recorded audio, simple desktop audio editing applicationsare adequate. For high-quality original content, a professionalrecording studio is recommended. Again, if third parties are involved,it is important that they are fully integrated into the team.

For both image and audio, it is possible to purchase re-usable contentfrom agencies, usually delivered in the form of CD-ROMs.

NOTE: Tools required to store and manage media content (and storageformats) are discussed in Tools—Information Management—Media ContentManagement

Test (236)

Testing applications (client/server or Netcentric) remains a complextask because of the large number of integrated components involved (forexample, multiplatform clients, multiplatform servers, multitieredapplications, communications, distributed processing, and data), which,in turn, results in a large number and variety of Testing tools.

For any large scale testing effort, it is vital to have a repository(see Tools—Information Management—Repository Management) that is capableof managing the data required by each of the test subcomponents. Therepository should manage the following entities:

Test conditions

Test cycles

System Investigation Requests (SIRs), triggered by a deviation of actualresults from those expected

Test data

Requirements

Within the repository, the following relationships between entities mustalso be managed:

Test cycle and the system component to which it refers

Test condition and the test cycle it belongs to

Requirement and the test condition that tests that requirement

These relationships make it possible to analyze efficiently the impactsof change and to document the state of system test. For example, thenumber of outstanding SIRs per cycle can easily be provided based onthese relationships.

In some cases, the mentioned entities and relationships cannot bemanaged within the repository, and may have to be modeled outside therepository (for example, in a teamware database). In this case, the linkbetween the repository and the external tools must be provided by ajudiciously chosen set of procedures and custom integration tools.

Component-based development may have an impact on the way in whichtesting should be performed.

A number of firm initiatives have conducted considerable research intothe field of testing:

Year 2000 Testing Contacts and KX Resources

The Technology Library contains further information including toolevaluations, practice aids, and newsletters

Integrated Testing Environment Job Aid

Product Considerations

a) When should vendor tools be used in the testing process?

Vendor tools are more appropriate when the requirements are totallydependent on the software development platform. Moreover, when thetechnology evolves too quickly, it requires a software organization tohandle the changes.

Test Data Management

Test Data Management tools allow developers to create and maintain inputdata and expected results associated with a test plan. They include testdata and archiving tools that assist in switching between cycles andrepeating a cycle based on the original data created for that cycle.

Test Data Management functionality may be provided by the followingtools:

Test data generation tools—usually generate test data by permutation ofvalues of fields, either randomly or systematically.

Test design repository tools—facilitate structured design andmaintenance of test cases. They help the developer find existing testcases, cycles, and scripts that may be appropriate for reuse.

Data management tools—provide backup and restore facilities for data.They also provide configuration management for multiple versions ofdata, maintaining consistency among versions of test data.

Implementation Considerations

a) What guidelines should be followed when creating component andassembly test data?

To minimize testing errors when creating component and assembly testdata, follow the guidelines provided by the AC Methods job aid forquality test data.

Product Considerations

a) What testing team factors should be considered when using a Test DataManagement tool?

Size of the testing team

The larger the testing team, the more benefits will be derived fromusing a Test Data Management tool (easier control over the test data forthe various testers), a configuration management tool (easier controlover all system configurations and component versions), and a test planmanagement tool (easier control over all test cycles, subcycles, theirexecution statuses, and so on).

b) What engagement factors affect the use of Test Data Management tools?

Risk rating of the engagement

In general, management and planning tools help better address theengagement risks. A high risk rating for the engagement will affectpositively the decision to use tools such as test planning, Test DataManagement, problem management, and configuration management.

Criticality of the engagement

In general, management and planning tools help better manage theengagement and ensure the timely delivery of a quality system.Therefore, dealing with a highly critical engagement will most likelyaffect positively the decision to use tools such as test planning, TestData Management, problem management, and configuration management.

Test Data Manipulation

Test Data Manipulation tools are used to create original test data and,sometimes, to modify existing test data. Such modifications may beneeded to process a change in the database schema and to correctintermediate results in order to complete a test cycle. Some test datamanipulation tools generate test data very effectively.

Test Planning

A Test Plan consists of several components:

Test schedule

Test execution tracking

Test cycles

Test scripts

Test conditions

Test condition generation

Input data

Expected results

Test Planning definition and maintenance tools define and maintain therelationship between components of a Test Plan.

Implementation Considerations

a) What guidelines should be followed when assembly testing thetechnology architecture?

When deciding which areas of the technology architecture to test, followthe guidelines provided by the a job aid for technology architectureassembly testing.

b) What guidelines should be followed when creating test scripts?

When preparing to test system components, scripts can be used to verifythat the system design specifications are properly implemented. A jobaid provides guidelines for creating product test scripts.

c) What guidelines should be followed when creating test cases for thecomponent test?

When preparing component test data, a checklist helps ensure that allcases are thought up so that component testing is complete.

d) What components interface with the Test Planning component?

The following components interface with the Test Planning component:Tools—System Building—Test—Test execution. This interface relates to theactual Test Planning scripts for an automated script playbackcapability. The scripting tool can be call directly from the TestPlanning tool, which runs it or loads it to the target platform. Moregenerally, all scripts, and actual results should be linked to thecycles.

Tools—System Building—Test—Test Data Management. Before beginning thecycle, the transfer, load, and refresh of test data can be run from theTest Planning tool.

Tools—Information Management—Repository Management. Each conversation,dialog, or executable tested in a cycle can be cross-referenced so thatit is possible to know from the design where a functionality is tested.

Tools—Configuration Management. Each conversation, dialog, or executabletested in a cycle can be cross referenced so that it is possible to knowfrom the design where a functionality is tested.

e) What is a repeatable test model?

f) What is the importance of a test database?

g) What is the team member retention with a repeatable test?

h) How does a repeatable test model affect testing automation?

The following is an overview of the repeatable test model as documentedby the Reinventing Testing Project (RTP).

A repeatable test model consists of tests that can be easily executed bystaff who have little or no experience of the application being tested.A repeatable test script provides the detailed steps necessary to testthe functionality. In addition, the script provides the tester withdetailed expected results to verify the operation of the test script.

In order to plan detailed script steps and expected results, it isnecessary to know the test data. A large portion of the test data willtypically be contained in test databases. These databases are calledbaseline databases, and are critical for a repeatable test model toexist. Baseline databases can be developed automatically (throughexecution of online activity in the system), manually (through test datamanipulation tools), extracted from production databases, and so on.Once the baseline databases are selected and created, the repeatabletest model can be developed. As the test model is based upon thesedatabases, the impact on the test model of any changes to the baselinedatabases must be analyzed.

With a repeatable test model, most of the team members' knowledge iscaptured in the tests. Retention of team members is therefore far lesscritical than with a non-repeatable test model, and expected costs oftraining new team members are reduced.

If the application does not change, repeating the tests yields the sameresults every time, given the same baseline databases. To remainrepeatable, a test model must be maintained to reflect changes made tothe application (fixes, isolated enhancements, new releases, and so on).

To ensure the quality of the application as well as testing efficiencyand effectiveness over time, the tests contained in the test model mustbe repeatable. Automation facilitates the engagement's ability toexecute a repeatable test model. The decision to automate the testexecution only affects whether the tests will be repeated manually orautomatically.

Automating the execution of a non-repeatable test model is a waste ofresources, as the test tool will not be able to re-execute the testsautomatically or perform full regression tests with little effort.Little or no benefits will be achieved from automation.

Product Considerations

a) Has RTP (Reinventing Testing Project) developed a test planmanagement system?

b) What tools can be used for problem tracking?

The RTP Tools Development team has documented their evaluation summariesof the internal test plan management system. The following is a briefdescription of the product.

The Test Plan Management System is an online GUI application that isused to facilitate the creation and maintenance of test models and tosupport the planning and performing of each test stage. Each test modelis stored in a central repository accessible by all team members.

Any test model data must be manually entered in the system or copiedfrom a previously entered test model.

Multiple test models can be accessed or viewed at one time.

In addition, the TPMS provides the capability to research previouslyentered test elements through online queries.

A reporting option is planned to produce metrics and management typereports.

c) What testing team factors should be considered when using a TestPlanning tool?

Size of the testing team

The larger the testing team, the more benefits will be derived fromusing a Test Data Management tool (easier control over the test data forthe various testers), a Configuration Management tool (easier controlover all system configurations and component versions), and a Test PlanManagement tool (easier control over all test cycles, subcycles, theiroperating statuses, and so on).

d) What engagement factors affect the use of Test Planning tools?

Risk Rating of the Engagement

In general, management and planning tools help better address theengagement risks. A high risk rating for the engagement will affectpositively the decision to use tools such as Test Planning, test datamanagement, problem management, and configuration management.

Criticality of the Engagement

In general, management and planning tools help better manage theengagement and ensure the timely delivery of a quality system.Therefore, dealing with a highly critical engagement will most likelyaffect positively the decision to use tools such as Test Planning, testdata management, problem management, and configuration management.

e) What application factors should be considered when using a TestPlanning tool?

Starting point of automation in the development life cycle If thetesting process is to include the use of a test plan management tool,test model components may be more easily reused across test stagesresulting in time and cost savings during Test Planning and preparation.This obviously has a positive influence on the decision to use the testplan management tool.

Test Execution

Test Execution tools support and automate the conduct of system tests.Test Execution support includes the tools required to:

Extract input data and expected results from the repository

Load this data into the appropriate Test Execution tools

Automate the test

Such tools include dynamic analyzers and execution logs. The TestExecution platform may differ from the development platform ifdevelopment is conducted in one environment (for example, Windows NTworkstations) and deployed on a different environment (UNIXworkstations).

A typical Test Execution tool supports test scripting and playback.These tools program or record the running of a test plan in an onlineenvironment by capturing key stroke sequences, mouse clicks, and otheractions. They then record them in a script. Once the script isprogrammed or recorded, it can run repeatedly on the same application,effectively emulating the user. While defining the script takes sometime, it saves tremendous effort when cycles must be re-run,particularly after relatively small changes (for example, the format ofan output field is modified). When the application is modified, thescript can be updated directly without re-entering long sequences ofuser input. This makes it easier to prepare for regression testing.Scripts may also be used for stress testing, where a single machine canrun scripts simultaneously, emulating large numbers of users.

Implementation Considerations

a) What development approach factors should be considered whenautomating Test Execution?

Reinventing Testing Project (RTP) has identified the following factorsthat either contribute to or take away from the successfulimplementation of an automated Test Execution tool. Further detail isavailable through RTP's Test Automation Strategy—Version 1.1. The typeof system development approach to be considered is:

Maturity of the testing process

Number of technical platforms

b) What testing tool factors should be considered when automating TestExecution?

RTP has identified the following factors that will either contribute toor take away from the successful implementation of an automated TestExecution tool. Further detail is available through RTP's TestAutomation Strategy—Version 1.1. Testing tool factors to be consideredinclude:

Cost of testing tools (including training and support)

Cost of test model maintenance (including test data)

Testing tool ability to work with GUI application builder

Vendor support capability

Proximity of vendor support personnel to the project site

Availability of tool support person on the testing team

c) What engagement factors should be considered when automating TestExecution?

RTP has identified the following factors that will either contribute toor take away from the successful implementation of an automated TestExecution tool. Further detail is available through RTP's TestAutomation Strategy—Version 1.1. Engagement factors to be consideredinclude:

Fixed fee engagement

Risk rating of the engagement

Criticality of the engagement

Risk of not automating testing

d) What application factors should be considered when automating TestExecution?

RTP has identified the following factors that will either contribute toor take away from the successful implementation of an automated TestExecution tool. Application factors to be considered include:

Application life expectancy

Number of planned releases

Use of application software packages

Frequency of upgrades in application software, system software, andhardware

Stability of the application

Starting point of automation in the development life cycle

Scope of the test automation

Number of passes per test cycle

e) What testing team factors should be considered when automating TestExecution?

RTP has identified the following factors that will either contribute toor take away from the successful implementation of an automated TestExecution tool. Further detail is available through RTP's TestAutomation Strategy—Version 1.1. Testing team factors to be consideredinclude:

Willingness and ability to maintain the test model

Communication between development team and testing team

Control over the test environment

Acceptance of automation (attitude toward change)

Experience with test automation

Experience with the testing process used on the engagement

Experience with specific testing tools

Anticipated learning curve with automated testing tools

Experience with the technology used on the engagement

Size of the testing team

Performance Management

Performance Management tools support application performance testing.Owing to the large number of components in modem systems, performancemodeling can be a complex task and requires tools to effectively managethe process. These tools monitor the real-time execution and performanceof software. They help to maximize transactions and response time to theend user. They are also useful in identifying potential bottlenecks orprocessing anomalies.

In the case of Internet-based applications, as the Internet is not acontrolled environment, performance management tools can only measureperformance within the domain of the controlled environment (up to theInternet Service Provider). However, in the case of intranet-basedsystems, where the environment is controlled from end-to-end,Performance Management may be performed across the entire system.

Emulation

Emulation tools emulate components that are part of the targetenvironment but are not in the development environment. These emulationtools include:

Target platform architecture components, including both custominfrastructure and system software products such as an X-window emulatoron a PC to access a Unix platform.

Stubs, which emulate subroutines in a minimal fashion.

Harnesses and drivers, which call up a module and emulate the context inwhich the module will be called in the production environment.

Test Result Comparison

Test Result Comparison tools are utilities used to compare expected andactual results. These tools outline the differences between actual andexpected results by comparing files and databases. Most of these toolsoffer functionality such as byte-by-byte comparison of files and theability to mask certain fields such as date and time.

Test Coverage Measurement

Test Coverage Measurement tools are used to analyze which parts of eachmodule are used during the test. Coverage analyzing tools are activeduring program operation and provide comprehensive information about howmany times each logic path within the program is run. This TestManagement and Quality Management tool ensures that all components of anapplication are tested, and its use is a vital and often overlookedcomponent of the test process.

SIR Management

SIR Management Tools help track each system investigation request fromproblem detection through documentation resolution.

Operations Architecture Framework (1300)

Operations Architecture

As shown in FIG. 13, the Operations Architecture is a combination oftools, support services, procedures, and controls required to keep aproduction system up and running efficiently. Unlike the Execution andDevelopment Architectures, its primary users are the systemadministrators and the production support personnel.

The following databases provide information on the OperationsArchitecture and list requirements and current tools solutions for themanaging of the various Operations Architecture areas. All areas of theOperations Architecture have the appropriate MODE sub-functions listed,along with requirements for management solutions and current tools thatassist and automate management solutions.

Cautions and Caveats

Unlike the Application and Execution Architectures, every function ofthe Operations Architecture must be reviewed. All components of theOperations Architecture are integral to the successful management of adistributed environment. Any processes, procedures, or tools developedor chosen as an operational management solution for a specificoperational area must be able to integrate with any existing or plannedprocess, procedure, tool solutions for other Operations Architectureareas.

While the tools data and suite information was current and accurate atthe time of publication of this document, there is no guarantee thatthat information is still accurate, or that the vendor is still inbusiness. It is imperative that the following actions are taken whenchoosing a tool-based solution:

determine that the vendor is still a viable candidate (i.e. still inbusiness, good recent product support track record)

verify the version of the tool to be installed will still provide themanagement solution required

verify the tool(s) will integrate with existing tool(s)

verify the tool(s) will integrate with other planned tool(s)acquisition(s).

General Implementation Considerations

Some key design decisions are specific to the design of certainfunctions, while others apply more generically across every function.This section presents the generic key design questions. Key designdecisions that relate specifically to a function are presented in eachof the subsequent functional grouping chapters.

The following generic decisions impact need for specific components:

When and how frequently, does the function need to be performed?

The timing and frequency of each function may have an effect on itsstaffing, the tool(s) required, the capacity of systems and networksneeded to support the tools.

Who will be performing the function?

Responsibilities need to be defined for each function, as the set uptasks will differ dramatically depending on whether the function is tobe performed in-house or outsourced. In addition, the individuals whowill be performing the function should be involved in the design of howthe function will be performed.

Will the function be centralized or distributed?

Central control will mean a stronger focus on remote management, withskills focused in one place, whereas distributed control will meanskills will need to be more widely dispersed. Distributed functions mayrequire less powerful tools due to their placement.

Will the solution be manual or automated?

A number of functions could be managed manually, especially if thefunctions are not directly related to the systems, or are performedinfrequently. Many of the functions, however, require an interface tothe systems, or involve large volumes of data.

Is integration with any existing systems required?

If integration with existing systems is necessary, hooks may need to bebuilt into both the existing and new systems.

What are the data sharing requirements with other functions?

Integration between functions will either require a tool capable ofsupporting both functions, or hooks between tools.

What are the expected data/transaction volumes, and how much historicaldata will be required?

Volumes of data, both real-time and historical, will have an impact onboth system and network sizing.

What platform/protocol constraints exist?

Platforms and protocols are central both to the overall approach as wellas the selection of tools to support the individual functions.

Is the intention to use tools or to custom develop some or all of thefunctions?

The choice of tools in the marketplace is increasing, but customdevelopment may still be required. This decision will impact how thefunction is established initially as well as its ongoing support andmaintenance.

Will existing data/databases be used, or will data be built fromscratch?

Many of the functions may already exist within the clients environment.As such, data which is necessary for supporting the system may alreadyexist. If so, it must be determined whether or not the existing data canbe used, either in its original or a converted state.

General Product Selection Considerations

It is important to note that there may be requirements which cannot bemet by any tools. In this case, in-house development may be analternative. This approach is likely to be more expensive, however, andmore difficult to support the long term, and thus should usually beavoided if possible. Were possible, the tool with the closest matchshould be purchased, and customized to meet the necessary requirements.

Some additional considerations are outlined below:

Central vs. Distributed Control

The answer to this question may limit the selection of tools as not alltools are capable of controlling functions remotely. If control iscentralized, technical expertise at distributed sites will not benecessary. This may, however, mean that a more complex, expensive toolis required.

If control is distributed, technical expertise will be needed at remotesites, and there is the potential for problems with the interfacesbetween tools.

Platform Constraints

Systems-based tools (e.g., for monitoring or control purposes) willclearly be platform dependent. Functional tools (e.g., to supportIncident Management or Change Control), however, can run independentlyfrom the systems tools and may only need to run on a limited number ofsystems.

Integration with other Functions

Integration between some of the functions is highly desirable.Integrated toolsets offer integrated functionality across a number offunctions, thus simplifying the interfaces between them (e.g., data willautomatically be consistent across functions). Purchase of such toolswill help reduce costly customization or the development of add-ons.

It is important to understand the level of integration between products,however, before buying them. Integration varies from vendor to vendorand can mean anything from simply having an icon on a desktop to fullyintegrated applications and data. In addition, integrated toolsets arelikely to be stronger in some functions than in others, and may precludeselection of the best possible tool for every function.

Anticipated Volume of Data & Transaction Throughput

Understanding the anticipated volumes will provide key input to sizingthe system. Predicted business volumes stated in the SLA should be usedto help determine the appropriate sizes for machines, databases,telecommunications lines, etc. Alternatively, experience from previousengagements can provide useful input.

Number of Users for the Tool

Users may not be limited to the number of support personnel accessing atool alone. Keep in mind that users of the tools may either be supportpersonnel, vendors, users, senior managers, etc.

Some tools will only support a limited number of users, or may onlysupport users within certain geographic boundaries. It is important tounderstand if there are any such limitations prior to purchasing a tool.

In addition, the number of users will affect the budgetary requirementsfor the purchase of a tool, particularly as they relate to hardware andcommunications requirements.

Level of Support Required

If third party software is to be purchased, suppliers must be assessedon their ability to ensure the availability, reliability, performanceand user support for these tools will be sufficient to deliver theappropriate levels of service to the users of the system. It may even benecessary to visit reference sites for the vendors to determine whetherthese requirements are being met.

Presentation (1302)

The presentation component provides the interface between the manager(s)of the system and management data generated by the system. Data can bemanipulated for various forms of output. By integrating the operationalarchitecture it is possible to reduce the number of front-end interfacesrequired. Commonly, the presentation component uses a GUI front-endinterface. This component is also responsible for real-time andhistorical report generation.

Event Processing (1304)

Event processing manipulates the raw data obtained in the event/datageneration layer into a more workable form. This layer performsfunctions such as event filtering, alert generation, event correlation,event collection and logging, and automated trouble ticket generation.Event processing routes the processed information on to either thepresentation or management applications layers. Again it is important toconsider the interface of the event processing component with the othercomponents of the operational architecture.

Help Desk (1306)

As with End User Services in the centralized model, the Help Desk is thesingle point of contact for all end users. This unit has end-to-endaccountability for all user incidents and problems regardless of whetheror not it has the resources to fix them (i.e., it must contact thenecessary technical resources in either IS organizations to ensure theincidents and problems get resolved).

Incident Management (1308)

Incident Management provides the interface between the users of thesystem and those operating and maintaining the system when an incidentarises. Incident Management is responsible for:

receiving incidents from users

informing users of known work-around where possible

ensuring that support personnel are working on an incident

keeping users informed of incident resolution progress

ensuring that incidents do not get lost as they are passed aroundsupport teams

informing users when incidents have been resolved and ensuringresolution was complete.

In addition, Incident Management is responsible for ensuring thatoutstanding incidents are resolved in a timely manner. As part ofIncident Management, incidents are reviewed, analyzed, tracked,escalated as necessary, and resolved.

Failure Control (1310)

Involves the detection and correction of faults within the systemwhether they be minor (e.g., workstation is down) or major (i.e., adisaster) has occurred.

Fault Management (1312)

When a negative event has been brought to the attention of the system,actions are undertaken within Fault Management to define, diagnose, andcorrect the fault. Although it may be possible to automate this process,human intervention may be required to perform at least some of thesemanagement tasks.

Event/Data Generation (1314)

Event/data generation interacts with all the managed components in theexecution and development environments in order to obtain the requiredmanagement information. This component also interacts with the physicalenvironment, managing hardware, and supporting infrastructure componentsof the operational architecture to obtain management information. It isimportant to consider these interfaces when choosing event/datageneration components. Agents and proxies are two common types ofevent/data generation tools. Often these tools use broadcasting andtrapping methods to capture information. Application generated eventsfrom vendor packages and user applications also fit into this componentof the operational architecture.

Monitoring (1316)

Verifies that the system is continually functioning in accordance withwhatever service levels are defined.

Event Management (1318)

An event is an electronic message generated by any component (e.g.,application software, system software, hardware, etc.) in the system.Event Management receives, logs, classifies and presents event messageson a console(s) based on pre-established filters or thresholds.

Management Applications (1320)

Management applications are those tools which are used to manage thesystem. Most of the MODE functions tie directly into this component. Themanagement applications component ties in directly with the integrationplatform component as the management applications tools must comply withthe standards set by the integration platform. For example, if theintegration platform is HP OpenView, then the management applicationsmust be HP OpenView software (API, SNMPx) or hardware (card) compliant.Management applications receive data from the event/data generation,event processing, and repositories components and then send data to thepresentation or repositories components. Management applications toolsinclude capacity planning tools, performance management tools, licensemanagement tools, remote management tools, systems monitoring tools,scheduling tools, help desk tools, etc. Some Enterprise Management toolseven poll the event/data generators for information but these optionsmay impact network performance. Web Server management is been introducedas part of the management operations framework. As Corporate Internetsand Extranets implement Web based software products to sell andadvertise business services, corresponding administrative, security,event notification and performance requirements must be performedsimilarly for the companies web based system. The critical path issuesfor Web based server software is typically security and performancebased levels of service.

Help Desk (1322)

As with End User Services in the centralized model, the Help Desk is thesingle point of contact for all end users. This unit has end-to-endaccountability for all user incidents and problems regardless of whetheror not it has the resources to fix them (i.e., it must contact thenecessary technical resources in either IS organizations to ensure theincidents and problems get resolved).

Implementation Considerations

The following are functional requirements for Incident, Request andProblem Management.

Logging Incidents/Requests

Call logger should be presented with a unique incident/requestidentifier, and should be able to enter a free format description aswell as the key data items specified in the data requirements section.Data and time stamps should be automatically registered and Incident andRequest management staff should have access to display all openincidents and requests as well as the incident/request history for aspecific user location.

Progress Incidents/Requests

Facilities should be given to provide a free format update of actionsand investigations, to assign the incident/request to a support group,or to escalate the incident. Date and time stamps should be attached toeach action and the full incident/request history should be available tothe person performing the update.

Re-assign Incidents/Requests

Possible for incidents and requests to be assigned to different supportgroups, if further investigation is required.

Close Incidents/Requests

Incidents and requests should be closed with a date and time stamp tohelp trend analysis and service level reporting.

Log Problems

Problems can be logged both as a result of one or more incidents, orthrough proactive monitoring of the system, before any incidents havebeen logged.

Support the functions either centrally or on a distributed basis

If the Incident, Request and Problem management functions are to becentralized, these functions need to be able to control and monitorincidents and problems, but other functions should be able to gainaccess to input detailed technical information or progress updates. IfIncident and Request management is distributed, it is recommended thatremote locations are given access to the central system, rather thanoperating local systems. (Some problem areas are local sites operatingon different time zones and standardizing escalation procedures fromlocal sites.)

Facility for auto-logging incidents

Event/alert based automatic logging of incidents to provide proactivemanagement of incidents and problems by informing Incident management ofissues before the user logs a call. This facility is conceptuallydesirable, but is only likely to be available if the Incident managementfunctionality is part of the monitoring tool. The costs of buildinghooks between tools and applications are likely to prove prohibitive. Inmedium or large environments, this facility is extremely desirable, andmust be built into the requirements.

Assess incidents automatically, based on previous experience and rules

Knowledge and case based incident management systems are becomingprevalent in the market place, and are built into Help Desk offerings.Use of these systems can help improve the responsiveness and reputationof the entire organization. (Case based tools will require building upover time.)

Incident Management

Incident Management provides the interface between the users of thesystem and those operating and maintaining the system when an incidentarises. Incident Management is responsible for:

receiving incidents from users

informing users of known work-around where possible

ensuring that support personnel are working on an incident

keeping users informed of incident resolution progress

ensuring that incidents do not get lost as they are passed aroundsupport teams

informing users when incidents have been resolved and ensuringresolution was complete.

In addition, Incident Management is responsible for ensuring thatoutstanding incidents are resolved in a timely manner. As part ofIncident Management, incidents are reviewed, analyzed, tracked,escalated as necessary, and resolved.

Implementation Considerations

Will users be given access to the Incident Management system?

Users will benefit by gaining up to date information on the progress ofincidents, and could be given the facility to log incidents directly,which would relieve some of the load of the Incident Managementfunction. However, this adds complexity to the solution, and increasescommunications requirements/costs.

Which support personnel will be given access to the Incident Managementsystem?

Support personnel would be able to enter progress against incidentswithout contacting Incident Management. The ability to scan incidentsmay also aid the Problem Management function. However, this addscomplexity to the solution, and may increase communicationsrequirements/costs.

How many incident support levels will be in place, and how expert willthe Incident Management function be?

This will depend on the knowledge and experience at the user locations.The level of technical expertise within the Incident Management functionwill drive the systems requirements.

Problem Management

Problem Management utilizes the skills of experts and support groups tofix and prevent recurring incidents by determining and fixing theunderlying problems causing those incidents. Within Problem Management,related incidents are correlated to problems and ultimately to order orchange requests. All problems are logged, tracked and archived. Wherepossible, work-around are determined and information regarding thework-around is distributed to the appropriate support personnel and usercommunities.

Implementation Considerations

Will problems be automatically logged or only by manual association withan incident?

Automatic logging of problems will require interfaces to be built withthe Event Management system, and perhaps the execution architecture forapplication errors.

Request Management

Request Management is responsible for coordinating and controlling allactivities necessary to fulfill a request from either a user, vendor, ordeveloper. Request Management determines if and when requests will befulfilled through interaction with the particular function(s) impactedby the request. Following such interaction, accepted requests will beplanned, executed, and tracked.

Implementation Considerations

Will users be given access to the Request Management system?

Users will benefit by gaining up to date information on the progress ofincidents, and could be given the facility to log incidents directly,which would relieve some of the load of the Incident Managementfunction. However, this adds complexity to the solution, and increasescommunications requirements/costs.

Failure Control (1324)

Involves the detection and correction of faults within the systemwhether they be minor (e.g., workstation is down) or major (i.e., adisaster) has occurred.

Fault Management

When a negative event has been brought to the attention of the system,actions are undertaken within Fault Management to define, diagnose, andcorrect the fault. Although it may be possible to automate this process,human intervention may be required to perform at least some of thesemanagement tasks.

Disaster Recovery

In the event of a significant system failure, Disaster Recoveryprocesses will be invoked to re-route the system resources to asecondary, stable configuration until the primary resources can berestored. Within a distributed environment, disaster recovery mustaccount for differing levels of disaster whether at a central ordistributed site(s).

Implementation Considerations

What is a disaster?

The way in which a disaster is defined will be dependent upon whichresources are critical to the business. For example, a data centerfailure may be critical for one client whereas a server failure foranother is more critical.

How quickly will disaster recovery be required for each service?

This will be defined in detail within the SLA, but high level servicerecovery targets must be understood, so that high level recovery planscan, in turn, be produced.

Recovery

Recovery manages all of the actions needed to restore service deliveryafter a system failure. With critical business applications being rolledout on distributed technologies, the recovery of these systems must beeasy, quick and efficient to guarantee availability of core businesssystems as expressed in the agreed service levels and operationallevels.

Implementation Considerations

What are some of the limitations that are encountered?

Recovery capabilities span the range from those required to bring up adevice after it has failed to those required in the event of a majordisaster. With critical business applications being rolled out ondistributed technologies, the recovery of these systems must be easy,quick and efficient. Loss of the system for even a short period of timecan result in significant financial losses to a clients business.

Hardware Maintenance

Hardware Maintenance maintains all of the components within adistributed system to protect the investment of the organization.Generally agreed upon in the SLAs, maintenance contracts are carriedout, monitored and recorded for each asset as appropriate.

Administration (1326)

Billing and Accounting

Billing & Accounting gathers the necessary accounting information forcalculating actual costs, determines chargeback costs based onpre-defined algorithms and bills users for service rendered.

Billing & Accounting also makes payments to service providers forservices and equipment provided in accordance with agreed upon SLAs. Aspart of this payment process Billing & Accounting reconciles bills fromservice providers against monitored costs and SLA/OLA violations.

Systems Management Planning (1330)

Capacity Modeling and Planning

Capacity Modeling & Planning ensures that adequate resources will be inplace to meet the SLA requirements, keeping in mind operationalrequirements which may require additional capacity. Resources caninclude such things as physical facilities, computers, memory/diskspace, communications lines and personnel. Through this component,changes to the existing environment will be determined, modeled andplanned according to the necessary requirements.

Production Control (1332)

Ensures that production activities are performed and controlled asrequired and as intended.

Production Scheduling

Production Scheduling determines the requirements for the execution ofscheduled jobs across a distributed environment. A production scheduleis then planned to meet these requirements, taking into considerationother processes occurring throughout the distributed environment (e.g.,software and data distribution, remote backup/restoration of data.) Itplans the production workload and then submits the tasks to the systemin the proper sequence, stops processing upon detecting a failure,provides on-line task tracking and workload forecasting.

Implementation Considerations

In a distributed environment are processes across entire or multipleplatforms and systems?

Processes may be taking place across the entire system on multipleplatforms in either a parallel or a serial fashion. Batch dependenciesmay be required across platforms, and multiple time zones may beinvolved. In addition, many non-mainframe based products do not provideproduction scheduling capabilities with the platform. Therefore, one cansee that scheduling processes across a distributed environment can bequite complex, requiring significant management effort to ensure thatprocesses occur appropriately.

How many schedulers will be used to control the schedules?

Depending on how the function is to be controlled, and how manyplatforms are to be supported:

Local control of a single device with a single scheduler (typicallymainframe)

Remote control of a single device with a single scheduler

Remote control of multiple but independent devices with a singlescheduler

Product Considerations

What is the Intended use of the tool?

The component plans for the production workload and then submits thetasks to the system in the proper sequence, stops processing upondetecting a failure, provides on-line task tracking and workloadforecasting. In addition, requirements are determined for the executionof scheduled jobs across the environment.

Does and existing component satisfy this requirement?

Production Scheduling contains specific requirements that addresses adistributed environments complexity of multiple platforms and systemplaced in either a parallel or serial fashion.

What other utilities are available with the tool?

The tool should provide control dependencies to schedule workloads suchas: Task/job sequence enforcement, external/internal event driven.Graphically displays work flow from the scheduling criteria and includessuch information as task/job name, task description, average run timeand resource requirements. Allow clients to define user schedules thatcan be based on predecessor events in the production environment.Reporting capabilities for forecasting, simulation and analyzingscheduled workload. Monitoring capability of past, present and futureworkloads as well as tracking of current workload terminationnotification of normal or abnormal completion.

Does the development team have any prior experience with the tool?

The development should be able to identify the component linkages aswell as the functional requirements critical for successful operationalintegration of the tool into the observed environment.

What level of the component is required?

Due to the complexity of a distributed environment one must account forthe processes taking place across the entire system on multipleplatforms in either a parallel or a serial fashion. Therefore,production scheduling capabilities across platforms is critical as wellas the ability to rerun/restart from single point of failure or providecheckpoint restart-ability.

Does the tool provide facilities to add color to MODE architecturemodel?

Communication with Performance management component to forecast resourcerequirements, such as near line storage, DASD space, and etc.

Interface with the Configuration management component facility to obtainconfiguration data in workload forecasting.

The scheduler will communicate with other schedulers on other systems torun a in a close relationship with the ability to support multipleheterogeneous platforms: MVS, Windows NT, UNIX, and AS/400.

Communicates with Backup/Restore to identify scheduling constraints dueto backup and restoration functions.

Communicates with the recovery facility to dynamically switch workloadfrom one processor to another in the event of a system failure.

Print Management

Print Management monitors all of the printing done across a distributedenvironment and is responsible for managing the printers and printing atboth central and remote locations. The purpose of a print architectureis to make formats applications independent, so that the only thingapplications need to do is obtain the data.

Print Architecture offers:

It provides independence from printer devices and languages

It makes it easy to develop and maintain report

Paper consumption may be reduced

Reports arrive to the addressee more quickly

It is possible to sign reports electronically

Confidentiality is improved as people can only see information that canbe accessed with their security level.

Implementation Considerations

What types of printers will be required (e.g., laser, impact, insets,etc)?

The types of printers will be dictated by the business requirements. Thetypes of printers, will in turn, determine what tools can be used tomanage printing may or may not be required.

Where are the printers going to be located?

The business will help determine where the printers need to be locatedbased on where/when printing needs to take place. In some instanceslocal printing may or may not be required.

What spooling facilities will be available?

If spooling is available, printing can be handled as a background task,freeing up system resources for use on-line.

Will review before print facilities be provided?

If these facilities will be provided, all material will not need to beprinted. If the material does need to be print; however, the location ofthe printing must be determined, and the system must be able to forwardthe printing on to the appropriate location.

Will printing of large documents be necessary?

Large print jobs may utilize system resources considerably (e.g., WAN,LAN, printer), and may tie up the printing queue for other individuals.This type of printing should be performed in off-hours or delayed toavoid contention for the printer during business hours.

What are some limitations that may be encountered?

In a distributed environment the sizing and routing of print traffic ismore complex. With new systems being installed, only educated guessesabout how and when printing will take place can help determine printrouting functionality. In most cases, some adjustments will be requiredto the print routing algorithms post-rollout to reflect the printingreality.

Product Considerations

What is the intended use of the tool?

Controls report production and distribution form the moment the reportis created to the time the printed report is dropped in the end-use smailbox (electronic, paper, microfiche, etc.)

What other utilities are available with the tool?

Provide queue management and ability to prioritize.

Provides a full featured on-line viewing system.

Provides for the archival of reports in a compressed format first ondisk, for a user specified time and then to tape of optical.

Process reports in due-out-sequence.

Automatic report balancing and archives the balancing reports for easyauditor review.

Provides a common output spooling and printer device control capabilityacross the network.

Provide report reprint capability, avoid reruns in lost reportsituations.

Provide centralized management of report setup and delivery information

How well does the tool integrate with other tools in the environment?

Interfaces with the performance monitoring to identify bottlenecks inthe distribution process

Notifies the service level management facility of any missed servicecommitments.

Communicates with the documentation management facility to obtain thedistribution information, media type and service level commitments.

Communicates with the recovery management facility to delete reportsthat will be recreated.

Communicates report volumes to the resource consumption managementfacility.

Does the tool provide support for specific areas?

Support multiple printer types as well as report delivery across them.This includes printer format translation (PCL, Postscript, etc.) andcode translation.

Any other specific functional requirements?

Output management issues require leverage of existing print capability,local and remote printing, and distribution management through asoftware package or an equivalent alternative.

File Transfer & Control

File Transfer and Control initiates and monitors files being transferredthroughout the system as part of the business processing (e.g., nightlybatch runs). File transfers may occur between any two or more deviseswithin the system.

System Startup & Shutdown

System Startup and Shutdown performs the activities required for thestartup or shutdown of the entire system (e.g., hardware, applications),or portions of the system depending upon the identified requirements.Within a distributed environment, the system includes both centralizedand remote resources.

Implementation Considerations

Will devices need to be shutdown/started remotely as well as beautomatic or manual (e.g., using scripts, embedded in schedule)?

If expertise will not be available locally, it is imperative that remotecontrol of the startup/shutdown processes be available. The presence ofskills, the availability of tools, and the uniqueness of theapplication/environment will dictate whether or not startup/shutdown isautomatic or manual.

How will clean shutdowns of all processes be ensured?

If a system failure takes place, it is important that all processes beshut down well, to ensure that the processes can be re-started and thatthe integrity of the information will be maintained.

In what order will hardware and software components be started/shutdown?

Based upon the technical requirements of the system (e.g., databasesshould be started before applications) as well as defined service levels(e.g., one particular application is critical and must be startedfirst), the order of startup/shutdown will be determined.

Are periodic re-boots required (e.g., to clean up memory)?

If this is necessary, automatic/manual startup/shutdown of the systemshould be scheduled (e.g., UNIX systems require this).

Analysis of the system and other resources need to be addressed?

The state of an application, the system or a specific resource must beknown at all times. Common activities performed as part ofStartup/Shutdown include:

logging on

virus checking

version checking

process initiation/completion

housekeeping

logging off.

Some limitations that may need to be taken into account?

System startup and shutdown is no longer confined to a centralized site.The system is distributed, in effect creating islands of technologywhich may be started or shutdown with the flip of a power switch on aworkstation. Processes which rely on the system being up and running(e.g., software and data distribution) may fail if a user has switchedhis/her machine off before leaving for the evening. Such failures willimpact the following days processing capabilities and must be accountedfor either by the system or through training. In addition, controlledmachine startup may be required to initiate tasks or to performactivities such as configuration checking or virus detection/correction.

Mass Storage Management

Mass Storage Management involves those activities related to thehandling of various types of centralized and distributed storage mediaincluding the monitoring and controlling of storage resources and theirusage.

The objectives of Mass Storage management are to: implement the toplevel of storage management, control the usage level of each storagedevice in the distributed environment, control all storage relatednaming standards and placement details in the installation.

Mass Storage Management is more complex in a distributed environmentthan in a centralized environment since many more storage options becomeavailable, as storage may take place centrally or on a distributed basisand the number and characteristics of storage devices have increased.

Implementation Considerations

What DBMS will be used and what utilities does it have?

The DBMS will often provide much of the necessary storage managementfunctionality; this decision impacts further requirements.

Will databases be distributed or centralized?

Storage management for centralized databases will clearly be simplerthen for distributed databases were a global view becomes more difficultto obtain, and where data consistency becomes more of an issue.

What media types will be used?

It is essential that the types of device to be used are understoodbefore detailed decisions are taken.

Distributed Environmental Constraints?

The allocation and sharing of storage media is more difficult to plansince users are distributed. Mass Storage Management is more complex ina distributed environment as many more storage options become available;storage may take place on disks, tapes, etc. Either centrally orde-centrally.

Product Considerations

What is the Intended use of the tool?

Control and manage the data storage environment including any/all media,disk, optical and tape.

Technology's ability to support the Operating Systems within thedistributed environment?

The tool must run in the platform selected in order to control usage ofdisk space, main memory, cache, etc. In addition, determining the spaceavailable helps control the device usage, storage capacity

What other utilities are available with the tool?

Continuous analysis of the data storage environment to insure optimumstorage utilization and location.

Eliminate fragmentation by reordering files

All storage devices managed independently of their type and location inorder to avoid storage problems, bottlenecks, etc.

Should the tool provide specific component functionality?

The tool should take into account the complexity of the distributedenvironment as well as the flexibility of the scenario that storage maytake place centrally or on a distributed basis and the number andcharacteristics of storage devices have increased.

Does the tool provide support for the databases selected for thedistributed environment?

Additional facilities may be required, even although databases typicallyhave built-in utilities or tools to perform these function and do notgenerally require a separate tool.

Does the tool provide facilities to add color and support linkages toMODE architecture model?

Communicates with the Performance management facility to identify anyperformance problems and relocate data based on the performanceanalysis.

Communicates with operation system error logging and/or the OperationsAutomation to identify any potential media or hardware failures andrelocate data, automatically files a problem log for corrective action.

Interface with the Capacity/Resource manager to create a definableresource forecast.

Backup/Restore Management

Backup and Restore Management considers all of the back-up andrestorations that need to take place across the distributed system formaster copies of data. Depending on the need, these processes may occurcentrally or remotely.

Implementation Considerations

What data/files will be backed up?

Files that are either unique, store site specific data or are highlyvolatile should be backed up. This will help ensure that important,business critical data will not be lost in the event of a system failureor disaster. All files do not necessarily need to be backed up as eachfile backup utilizes storage space and ma impede the performance of thesystem.

What will be the frequency of the backup, the number of copies made, andthe number of generations maintained?

The critically and volatility of the information will determine thefrequency of the backups and whether or not multiple copies of the dataare maintained centrally/locally. In addition the stability of thesystem needs to be considered as well as any performance impacts ofbacking up the data as required.

The number of generations maintained will be dependent on the disasterrecovery policies in place as well as any government/regulatory controlsin existence.

How will the integrity of a backup or restore be ensured?

Because databases can be located throughout the distributed environment,care must be taken to ensure that data integrity is maintained. This maymean storing the master copy of data centrally, or synchronizing thecommits of updates of the information appropriately.

Will the data be backed up centrally, locally, or at an alternate site?

Centrally located devices will require the use of both LAN and WANbandwidth to backup the data, and restoration of the data will beslower. This may be hard to achieve if there are numerous devices in thesystem. Central location, however, will ensure that backed up data willbe stored in one place, potentially making recovery from a systemfailure or disaster recovery easier as well as centrally less expensiveto maintain. In addition, central control over the backup/restoreprocess will require expertise at a single location whereas localcontrol will necessitate expertise in multiple locations. Alternate sitecontrol may provide the best mix of central/local placement of skills.

In contrast, local devices do not utilize the WAN bandwidth, andtypically provide faster data restoration. Local devices, if available,may be more expensive and may require local expertise.

Alternate site backup combines both of the strategies in that WANbandwidth to the central site is not over-utilized, and restoration ofthe data can happen fairly quickly as well as securing information asinformation is stored in multiple locations.

Will copies be held at multiple locations?

Backup copies may need to be stored at multiple locations for securitypurposes (i.e. in the event of a system failure, or disaster, somebackup copies may have been destroyed.)

Product Considerations

What is the intended use of the tool?

Provide services and facilities to enable the client to effect timelyand accurate recovery in the event of an interruption to processingcapability.

What other utilities are available with the tool?

The backup product should have fundamental management capabilities.Automatic restore, unattended operation and command line processing ofthe product should be available. Basic tape functions such ascataloging, internal labeling, initialization, certification, scratchprotection and write protection are musts.

Performs automatic backup of data files on site standards.

Designed along the lines requester-server model; more specifically thetool runs on the server machine and acts as a shared resource for dataaccess, integrity, security recovery, etc.

Full auditing capability should be present for backups as well as errordetection and notification that a backup has failed should be available.

Provide full and incremental backups, partial restore, andcompression/decompression.

Capable of managed and systematic restore process.

How well does the tool integrate with other tools in the environment?

Backups are typically embedded into production scheduling with restoreson an ad hoc basis. Backup/Restore needs to ensure that a file can beonly backed up/restored by users with the right access level.Furthermore, file transfer utilities need to be used when theinformation to archived is sent through the network as well as securityfor file control access and global authorization should be available anddone in concert with the security management facility.

Should the tool provide specific component functionality?

Database backup/restore is inherently more complex than backup ofstandard files. It is important to ensure that all relationships areresurrected after restoring database files. (Integrated with thefunctionality of the DBMS)

Does the tool provide support to specific areas?

The product should support multiple heterogeneous platforms: Windows NT,AS/400, MVS and UNIX.

Software features of the product should support items such as directfile access, direct volume access and extended attributes. The abilityto backup the operating system files. Support should also handle openfile backups either waiting and retrying or taking a fuzzy backup.

Dual logging support in the DBMS is required, both for online andarchived logs.

Pint in time recovery of database and database components must besupported.

Ability to support various types of storage devices (magnetic disc,cartridge, tape, optical disc.)

Does the tool provide support for a specific environment?

The ability to support unattended operations reduces the need foroperations expertise in both central and remote locations

Does the tool add color to MODE architecture model through performancemeasures?

Performance of the backup product is essential. The tool should backupall production data in the processing window provided and the restorecapability should match availability and disaster recovery requirements.Performance can be enhanced through the ability to throttle the backupprocess to reduce network traffic.

Archiving

Archiving saves and stores information across the distributedenvironment, either centrally or in distributed locations. Archivingmoves datasets, files, etc. from one device to another, usually lowerspeed, device based on a number of parameters. Archiving can be used tomove information to or from distributed and centralized sites.

Implementation Considerations

Which files and databases will be archived?

Some files and databases need to be stored on fast devices so users canaccess them quickly. In addition, certain files may need to bemaintained for either historic or government/regulatory reasons.

What media will be used for archiving?

The cost of the media, space available and its performance capabilitiesshould determine which archiving medium is used as well as the existenceof central or local expertise.

How long should archived data be maintained?

It is important to define the maximum time that data needs to be storedbefore being deleted, including the number of generations that need tobe maintained. This is because the amount of archival space should bedetermined up front. The maximum time will likely be determined byeither government/regulatory controls or disaster recovery requirements.

How will the integrity of retrieved data or files be ensured?

Because databases can be located throughout the distributed environment,care must be taken to ensure that data integrity is maintained. This maymean storing the master copy of data centrally, or synchronizing thecommits or updated of the information appropriately.

Will archiving devices reside centrally or locally?

Central control over the archiving process will require expertise at asingle location whereas local control will necessitate expertise inmultiple locations.

Centrally located devices will require the use of both LAN and WANbandwidth to archive the data, and retrieval of the data will be slower.This may be difficult to achieve if there are numerous devices in thesystem. Central location, however, will ensure that archived data willbe stored in one place, potentially making recovery from a systemfailure or disaster recovery easier. In addition, central devices may beless expensive to maintain.

In contrast, local devices do not utilize the WAN bandwidth, andtypically provide faster data retrieval. Local devices, if available,may be more expensive, and may require local expertise.

Implementing (1334)

Executes change within the distributed environment with testedcomponents and techniques according to the appropriate plan(s).Implementing includes such things as: initial installation, software &data distribution, license management, etc.

System Component Configuration

System Component Configuration provides a mechanism to configureequipment (i.e., hardware and software) which has configurationparameters to set and to manage the inter-relationships betweenconfigured components within the system. Configuration information forparticular equipment must be coordinated across the system to ensurethat all equipment can function together properly.

Implementation Considerations

Where does the function get input from?

Configuration settings can be retrieved from different sources. Therelease and the rollout schedule will contain a detailed description ofequipment and its configuration and can therefore be used as input.Alternatively, the asset inventory system can be updated in advance andthen used as an active database to drive the configuring process.

Product Considerations

What is the Intended use of the tool?

Definition and implementation of consistent configurations for allconfigurable components within the system.

What other utilities are available with the tool?

Hardware and Software should be configured accurately and with minimalbusiness disruption during initial installation.

Ability to re-configure hardware and software both locally and remotely.

How well does the tool integrate with other tools in the environment?

The asset data has to be updated accordingly and must reflect the actualstate of hardware and software and all their relationships.Configuration data may be distributed to the device by Software & DataDistribution; therefore, System Component Configuration needs to getaccess to Software & Data Distribution processes.

Software & Data Distribution

Software and Data Distribution sends out the correct version of therelease package to the distribution locations and updates the locationswith the contents of the release package (e.g., software, data,configuration information, procedures and training/support materials.)

The software and data distribution mechanism itself updates either thesoftware, data, or configuration information on a machine(s), reportsthe relative success/failure of the distribution and updates the assetinformation for the sites/machine(s) affected by the distribution.

Implementation Considerations

What are some limitations that may be encountered?

Training Planning also impacts how well service will be delivered withinthe distributed environment. The skill sets required by supportpersonnel will change with the introduction of distributed technologies.Support personnel will be required to have greater breadth of knowledge.No longer can an individual simply understand the network or theapplications. The intertwined nature of a distributed environment willforce individuals to understand, at least at a high-level, how thesystem fits together. In addition, support personnel will need to havesome specialized skills. As no one individual can fully understand thedetail behind the entire system, teams of specialized support personnelwill be required to work together to a greater extent in theseenvironments. This group interaction may require new skill sets notfrequently found in traditional support organizations.

What are some focus areas to determine an appropriate training plan?

The existing skills must be assessed and a forward-thinking trainingdirection must be defined. The training plan will likely emphasize newertechnologies and different methods of training with the underlying goalof providing the appropriate level of service as required by the SLAs.

Product Considerations

What is the intended use of the tool?

Support the ability to distribute software components to interdependent,multiple heterogeneous platforms from a single source. The featuresshould be automated and only require minimal operator involvement.

What other utilities are available with the tool?

Centralized control and administration of distribution function.

Backout, configuration restoration capability.

Schedulable, unattended distribution and installation of software.

Ability to generate distribution candidate lists from asset/inventorymanagement database.

Logging of status/failures to centralized system monitoring facility.

Ability to distribute release packages constructed in modulecontrol/versioning facility.

Pre-defined installation and de-installation scripts.

Ability to perform complete back-out of all related segments quickly andautomatically, without impacting other, successfully installed updates.

Features should include: data compression and decompression,check-pointing, and retry.

Users should be allowed to postpone distribution to their workstation.

What level of the component is required?

The function must be able to access a release library, to identifyrelease packages, release component groups and release components, andto associate the correct version number with these components.

Ability to select destination nodes by certain criteria, such aslocation, hardware type, standard configuration at these nodes and toaddress these nodes in the network.

The function must send to and install software and data at remotelocations reliably and within an agreed time scale causing minimumdisruption.

The function must be able to back out remotely, either as part of thedistribution or as a separate process. The mechanism must be able toregress to the previous operable state prior to disruption.

Ability to synchronize data and time between systems.

How well does the tool integrate with other tools in the environment?

Software & Data Distribution needs to access and update asset data inthe asset inventory system to reflect implemented changes(automatically). In addition the function may be based on the same filetransfer protocol as File Transfer & Control; unless the tools usestheir own proprietary file transfer method based on a standardcommunication protocol.

Does the tool provide support for specific environments?

Specialized functionality to support operation across the wide-areanetwork environment including: parallel distribution and datacompression. In addition, support of platform specific functions andcapabilities due to awareness of platform specific information residentin the asset/inventory database.

User Administration

User Administration handles the day-to-day tasks involved inadministering users on the system. These tasks include such things as:adding new users, changing user Ids, re-establishing user passwords,maintaining groups of users, etc.

Security Management

Security Management controls both physical and logical security for thedistributed system. Due to the nature of a distributed environment,security may need to be managed either centrally, remotely or through acombination of the two methods.

Security Management also handles the logging of proper and illegalaccess, provides a way to audit security information, rectify securitybreaches and address unauthorized use of the system.

Implementation Considerations

Some limitations that may be encountered?

Security must exist in various levels throughout the system in order toprevent unauthorized access. Security components must be packaged into asecurity architecture which can be effectively managed by anorganization through their security management strategies.

The number of security components required to secure a distributedenvironment will increase due to the computing power available throughthe use of these new technologies and the heterogeneity of theenvironment. Although things such as dial-up access, LAN access,multiple host access, etc. introduce new user capabilities, theysimultaneously introduce security risks into the system.

What are the benefits of single logon capabilities?

Due to the number of components, users may be required to have multipleID(s) and passwords unless the system is designed to allow a user toaccess all of the required resources through a single logon. As mostproducts on the market typically allow access to only a subset ofresources, single logons with multiple ID and password coordination maybe difficult to achieve. Issues such as periodic required passwordchanges can be difficult to overcome while maintaining adequatesecurity.

Product Considerations

What is the Intended use of the tool?

Protects all computer resources, facilities and data from accidental orintentional destruction, modification, disclosure and/or misuse.

What other utilities are available with the tool?

One User-ID for access to all software (central point for all securitychecking).

Maintains a security log and user profile of what was accessed when,from a computer resource, facility and data view point.

Security Administration ability to monitor the activity of a user ofresource.

Allows users capability, when authorized, to maintain their own securityprofiles by individual or group.

Access authority for database objects (data-sets) as they appear outsidethe DBMS must be controlled.

Database authorities must be manageable at a group/role level.

Single user setup and sign-on capability across all platforms andapplications.

Virus protection on all platforms.

Support for external security devices and dial access equipment, etc.

Encrypted flow of security information across the network.

Comprehensive access logging and auditing capability.

Enhanced security capability beyond normally supplied UNIX levels. Thisincludes being able to support scoped UNIX administrative users (rootsubsets, limited root functionality).

Network Management

Network & Systems Management Planning is responsible for the planningactivities involved in running the day-to-day operations and maintenanceof the production systems (e.g., capacity planning, performanceplanning, etc.).

Controlling (1336)

Monitors change to make sure that change is delivered on-time accordingto established plans, making adjustments to the plan when unforeseenissues or events arise (e.g., rollout management, change control, assetmanagement etc.)

Change Control

Change Control is responsible for coordinating and controlling allchange administration activities within the distributed environment(i.e., document, impact, authorize, schedule, implementation control.)

Implementation Considerations

What types of changes will be controlled by Change Control and what isthe anticipated volume of changes?

The types of changes Change Control should cope with need to be defined.Changes can range from a minor document change to the introduction of acomplete new service. However, moving a workstation from one desk toanother may not require a change request.

Design of the function heavily depends on its size. It may be arelatively small environment with little expected change, or it could bea huge distributed system with many locations, many users and manydifferent platforms.

It is easy to underestimate the volume and complexity of changes in adistributed environment. Changes to different platforms can easilybecome very complex. Experiences from previous engagements should beused to help predict figures. In a typical distributed environment,several hundred changes per month can be expected.

To what extent should Change Control be integrated with the assetinventory system, maintained by Asset Management?

Impact analysis can use Asset Management to get a detailed list ofassets which are dependent on the subject to be changed. It may be amandatory requirement to provide this list before a change request canbe accepted.

To what extent should Change Control be integrated with Incident andProblem Management?

Change requests might be closely tied to incidents and problems, thuswhen a change is implemented, the corresponding incidents and problemscan be cleared.

Which media will be used for change request submission?

Pure electronic forms will be easy to forward over different locations,but it is more difficult to include a signature feature forauthorization, and it is not easy to attach documents to provideadditional information. Therefore, further paper forms are typicallyused for raising change requests but the change administrator thenstores the most important information in a change request database. Thedecision will depend primarily on the size of the system.

There are some limitations that may be encountered within a distributedenvironment.

There will be multiple change drivers including the users,developers/architects and vendors. The change these groups will wish tointroduce must be coordinated on a wide-scale basis as the impact ofchange within these environments is great. Change Control allows theimpact of the change to be assessed along with its merits, timescales,etc. It also provides a way of evaluating and rationalizing multiplechange requests against one another to determine what changes shouldactually take place.

Product Considerations

What is the intended use of the tool?

Integrated central repository of source, change and configuration dataused to pro-actively manage all events impacting user service. Managethe process of change activity, while maintaining the integrity of bothapplication development and the production environment. Support changecontrol from the initiation of the change, through productionconfiguration across multiple platforms.

What other utilities are available with the tool?

Change requests need to be registered in the system, with a uniquenumber assigned as well as related incidents and problems.

The system must support update of change requests. Updates may includechanging priorities, results of the assessment, and adding a summary ofthe implementation.

Once a change has been implemented the change administrator mustcomplete the log by closing the change request.

Centralized repository for software releases, including current andback-level generations.

Asset Management

Asset Management ensures that all assets are registered within theinventory system and that detailed information for registered assets isupdated and validated throughout the assets lifetime. This informationwill be required for such activities as managing service levels,managing change, assisting in incident and problem resolution andproviding necessary financial information to the organization.

Implementation Considerations

What data will be stored?

There are four options to consider, when designing the scope of theAsset Management function. Usage of the Asset inventory only as aproduction system database (core database), including hardware devices,software versions loaded in the production environment, their licensesand network configuration data. Thus the asset inventory system onlystores the core systems components in the production environment.

In addition to the production system data as describes above, itcontains any existing release and release components such as softwaremodules, documents and procedures. It also contains service levelagreements and actual figures for user groups and devices, incidents,problems and change requests. It may also contain additional data suchas performance data or log of all backups taken.

How will data be kept up-to-date?

This can be achieved by regular and ad hoc audits, using manual andautomated procedures. An alternative approach would be to use asset datato drive Software & Data Distribution. The Software & Data Distributionprocesses would get data from the asset inventory system as input Ifthese processes configured the devices according to the asset inventoryit would be up-to-date by definition.

What phases of an assets life cycle should be covered by AssetManagement?

It may be appropriate to control assets within the first stage of thelife cycle(i.e., from development on) or it my prove more appropriate toimplement Asset Management only from the point of delivery.

Product Considerations

What is the intended use of the tool?

Maintain a central repository for all software licenses and assets.

What other utilities are available with the tool?

Software asset tracking by location/server, automatic detection ofcorrect level of software.

Authorize license use.

Perform periodic searches for unlicensed software.

Central inventory system

Ability to back up and archive the asset inventory system

What are some of the inventory maintenance issues that need to beaddressed?

Ability to maintain a data model representing the basis for an assetinventory system that reflects the types of assets to be managed andtheir relationships. The model should be flexible to cope with futurestructural changes. A record needs to be added to the inventory systemwhen an asset is purchased or created, or when changes to theenvironment are performed.

How well does the tool integrate with other tools in the environment?

Asset data needed to support various other management functions such as:

Hardware Maintenance

Release Testing

Procurement

Initial Installation

System Component Configuration

Software & Data Distribution.

Does the tool provide support for a specific environment?

Current asset data from the distributed environment needs to beretrieved frequently through regular and ad hoc audits.

Rollout Management

Rollout Management is concerned with delivering new sites or services toexisting sites on-time based on the rollout schedule. Rollout Managementmonitors the rollout progress of all functions against the rolloutschedule to ensure that the schedule is maintained. Review of therollout schedule takes place regularly to determine how well rollout isprogressing and to make any adjustments to the rollout schedule basedupon any problems or issues which arise.

Implementation Considerations

What are some principles that should be applied in determining rolloutplanning?

At the beginning of a rollout, the number of incidents can be dramatic.This happens due to initial problems with hardware and system softwareas well as the unfamiliarity of the users. In addition to an increasedsupport load, support teams will need more time to process an incidentand to solve an underling problem since they will need to becomefamiliar with the new service. Once support teams have become familiarwith the system and know how to resolve the most common problems,rollout can be accelerated.

Since many problems will occur initially during rollout, it is importantto have quick access to support teams and development teams. If sitesare close, support personnel can get to the sites quickly. Once thesystem is more stable, remote installation can occur.

Instead of planning a tight schedule that keeps teams busy all the time,some windows should be left in the schedule to allow catching up time incase of delays. Otherwise, small deviations to the schedule cannot behandled and larger delays to the entire schedule will result.

When rollout continues over a period of time, hardware and systemsoftware updates will affect the initial implementation of the system.The service to be implemented itself may also be updated during rollout.Therefore it is important to review hardware and software maintenanceand release plans and to reflect these plans in the rollout schedule.

Will the system be rolled out in one big bang or through a phasedrollout over a longer period of time?

Rollout of a new service can either be performed at one specific pointin time for all locations or phased over a certain period of time.Phased rollout is the preferred approach because it limits the risk ofserious business disruptions. In some cases, however, it may benecessary to complete rollout simultaneously for business reasons.

What are some of the limitations encountered in a distributedenvironment?

Rollout Planning handles the greatest period of change in distributedsystems management—system rollout and installation. During rollout everysite and every user may be impacted by the changes taking place. Sincedelivery of the system will affect how well it is received by the usersand is oftentimes defined by an SLA(s), delivery of the system must takeplace smoothly with minimal interruption to the users. This can bechallenging when both old and new architecture domains must existconcurrently until the rollout has been completed.

Interdependencies within the schedule must be identified prior torollout to highlight the importance of the schedule and the effortrequired from each group involved.

Release Control

Release Control is concerned with delivering a release on-time basedupon the release schedule. Release Control monitors the release progressof all activities against the schedule to ensure that the schedule ismaintained. Review of the release schedule takes place regularly todetermine how well the release is progressing and to make anyadjustments to the release schedule based upon any issues or problemswhich arise.

Implementation Considerations

What will be the versioning strategy?

It is necessary to determine how a release will be named and versioned.The following points should be considered when defining a versioningstrategy. The versioning strategy should be kept simple and meaningful.Versions should be applied not only for complete releases, but for alllogical groups of release components as defined in the releasedefinition data model. Asset Management needs to reflect the releasecomponent data model in order to be able to store the asset information.In addition, the versioning strategy will affect Software & DataDistribution to ensure that the appropriate version of software/data isresident on the unit prior to implementing the new release, andco-requisite checking ensures that implementations of software/data willleave a machine in a valid state.

How frequently should new releases be packaged?

A minimum time interval between two regular releases needs to bedefined. Most planned releases typically occur within three to sixmonths of one another.

Will delta releases be allowed?

The need for delta releases as part of the overall policy must bedetermined. Delta releases are high risk, as they require a much betterunderstanding of what is already implemented.

Delta releases have the advantage of requiring less storage space on thetarget machine but it may be more difficult to ensure that the basecomponents are compatible. This can become a particular problem whenmany components have changed and several delta releases haveaccumulated.

Will simultaneous changes across platforms be required?

Implementing releases in a distributed environment requires complexsynchronization across machines and platforms. An appropriate strategyneeds to be determined.

What are some limitations that may be encountered at distributed sites?

Release Planning coordinates the release of updates (e.g., software,data, procedures, etc.) to the distributed sites. An application, forinstance, can no longer be delivered upon successful completion of itssystem test. This is due to the fact that any change in the distributedenvironment will impact other components in the distributed environment.Releases must therefore be planned carefully to ensure that a changewill not negatively impact the distributed system.

Product Considerations

What is the intended use of the tool?

Monitoring and delivery of releases as well as review of releaseschedule versus planned schedule.

What other utilities are available with the tool?

Provide management of source code, objects, executables, graphics, anddocumentation.

Track and manage multiple versions of an application, such asdevelopment, staging, certification, production, and prior versions ofproduction.

Provide automatic file versioning, configuration versioning, releasecontrol, change tracking, etc.

Populate multiple platforms with the correct code at the same time or onschedule, and provide update status.

Confirmation of release scheduling and determine if the release is onschedule and report on progress of release.

If schedules have to be changed, changes need to be authorized by allinvolved functions and components.

How well does the tool integrate with other tools in the environment

Release Planning and Release Control naturally use the same tool,typically a spreadsheet, for creating and maintaining the releaseschedule.

Migration Control

Migration Control is a function underneath Release Control. Updates tothe distributed system must be tested prior to being released into thedistributed environment. To control the updates as the move from thedevelopment into the production environment, Migration Control ensuresthat the proper updates are received from development, versionedaccording to the version strategy of Release Planning, moved into thetest environment, moved form the test environment into the productionenvironment after the pre release tests have been successfullycompleted.

Implementation Considerations

What units are subject to migration?

The groups of components, which are allowed to be migrated, must bedetermined, for example: single software modules or documents can bemigrated on their own and only complete releases (including deltareleases) with all their components may be migrated.

Where will the release library be located?

The library can either be held centrally or can be distributed overvarious sites. A centralized approach is preferable in order to avoidinconsistencies.

Which platforms and media are used for the release library?

The release library may reside of several platforms. UNIX software maybe stored on UNIX servers, host software on hosts and third partyworkstation software may be on floppy disks.

License Management

License Management ensures that software licenses are being maintainedthroughout the distributed system and that license agreements are notbeing violated.

Implementation Considerations

What data will be stored?

There are four options to consider, when designing the scope of theAsset Management function. Usage of the Asset inventory only as aproduction system database (core database), including hardware devices,software versions loaded in the production environment, their licensesand network configuration data. Thus the asset inventory system onlystores the core systems components in the production environment.

In addition to the production system data as describes above, itcontains any existing release and release components such as softwaremodules, documents and procedures. It also contains service levelagreements and actual figures for user groups and devices, incidents,problems and change requests. It may also contain additional data suchas performance data or log of all backups taken.

How will data be kept up-to-date?

This can be achieved by regular and ad hoc audits, using manual andautomated procedures. An alternative approach would be to use asset datato drive Software & Data Distribution. The Software & Data Distributionprocesses would get data from the asset inventory system as input Ifthese processes configured the devices according to the asset inventoryit would be up-to-date by definition.

What phases of an assets life cycle should be covered by AssetManagement?

It may be appropriate to control assets within the first stage of thelife cycle (i.e., from development on) or it my prove more appropriateto implement Asset Management only from the point of delivery.

Product Considerations

What is the intended use of the tool?

Maintain a central repository for all software licenses and assets.

What other utilities are available with the tool?

Software asset tracking by location/server, automatic detection ofcorrect level of software.

Authorize license use.

Perform periodic searches for unlicensed software.

Central inventory system

Ability to back up and archive the asset inventory system

What are some of the inventory maintenance issues that need to beaddressed?

Ability to maintain a data model representing the basis for an assetinventory system that reflects the types of assets to be managed andtheir relationships. The model should be flexible to cope with futurestructural changes. A record needs to be added to the inventory systemwhen an asset is purchased or created, or when changes to theenvironment are performed.

How well does the tool integrate with other tools in the environment?

Asset data needed to support various other management functions such as:

Hardware Maintenance

Release Testing

Procurement

Initial Installation

System Component Configuration

Software & Data Distribution.

Does the tool provide support for a specific environment?

Current asset data from the distributed environment needs to beretrieved frequently through regular and ad hoc audits.

Database Management (1338)

Database Management is the management and administration of databasetechnologies, including monitoring, physical file placement,performance, and sizing.

Database Recovery

Database Recovery is the process of providing recovery of databaseentities following a logical or physical database failure. This includesdatabase software failure and local disk failure.

Database Disaster Recovery

Database Disaster Recovery is the process of recovering the databaseentities following a catastrophic failure. This process should be fullyintegrated in the enterprise-wide disaster recovery plan.

Database Backup/Restore Management

Database Backup/Restore Management is the process of providingpoint-in-time backup and recovery for logical database restores. Thisincludes application-driven data errors, dropped tables, and corruptdata.

Capacity Modeling & Planning

Capacity Modeling & Planning ensures that adequate resources will be inplace to meet the SLA requirements, keeping in mind operationalrequirements which may require additional capacity. Resources caninclude such things as physical facilities, computers, memory/diskspace, communications lines and personnel. Through this component,changes to the existing environment will be determined, modeled andplanned according to the necessary requirements.

Implementation Considerations

What are some limitations that may be encountered?

Capacity Planning & Modeling must coordinate the requirements across thesystem (e.g., networks, servers, workstations, CPU, etc.) Capacity isdriven by the need to meet SLAs with the user communities and as part ofthe planning and modeling process, future threats to capacity should beidentified.

Capacity planning cannot, however, be done separately for each piece ofthe system. Capacity planning must be done for the system as a whole tounderstand how the capacity of one portion of the system affects thecapacity of another. Due to the large number of components within adistributed environment with any-to-any connectivity that will affectthe systems capacity, the equation for determining capacity quicklybecomes large, with many interdependencies.

Monitoring (1340)

Verifies that the system is continually functioning in accordance withwhatever service levels are defined.

Performance Management

Performance Management ensures that the required resources are availableat all times throughout the distributed system to meet the agreed uponSLAs. This includes monitoring and management of end-to-end performancebased on utilization, capacity, and overall performance statistics. Ifnecessary, Performance Management can make adjustments to the productionenvironment to either enhance performance or rectify degradedperformance.

Implementation Considerations

What are some of the critical elements to focus on in a centralizedenvironment and distributed environment?

Performance Management in a centralized environment typically focuses onthree main factors: CPU utilization, disk I/O, memory occupancy.

Within the distributed environments, however, these factors extend outinto the environment across networks, increasing the complexity ofgathering the necessary performance information.

View performance as a typically business driven?

Performance Management needs to consider performance from a businessperspective, not merely a systems one. Most transactions in distributedsystems utilize a wide variety of resources, and the measurement ofend-to-end response time becomes the sum of the time expended by eachone of the components sequentially involved in the transaction less thetime while components were processing in parallel.

What devices/users will be monitored and at which locations? Will thisinformation change?

Understanding the scope of devices/users, and their locations is key tomanaging performance. Understanding whether or not the scope will changewill help determine how Performance Management needs to be approached.

Will performance be measured from end-to-end or merely for individualcomponents?

The issues associated with each of these approaches are described above.The approach chosen will have a profound effect on determining theissues that need to be resolved.

Will monitoring be continuous or by demand?

Continuous monitoring can generate significant performance overhead,whereas targeted, periodic monitoring may only be necessary. Thisstrategy will impact the design of the technical infrastructure as wellas the tools chosen the manage the systems performance.

Will only selected transactions be measured, and if so, should thisselection be configurable?

It may be necessary to measure business critical transactions only;specified within the SLA. If the facility to select specifictransactions is required, significant customization of the system maybenecessary.

Will response times be required for all transactions of a particulartype, or can sampling be used?

Once transaction have been selected for monitoring, the decision needsto be taken whether or not every transaction of that type should bemonitored, or only a sample set of those transactions. Full monitoringmay increase network and processing overheads.

The ability to dynamically adjust the system to improve performance isalso critical?

As SLAs will likely be tied in some way to performance, it is importantto monitor and correct the systems performance as it degrades to ensurethat operational levels are maintained and that the SLA(s) will not beviolated.

Product Considerations

What is the Intended use of the tool?

Collect, analyze and display in graphical format real-time performancecharacteristics from a wide range of resources. Analyze current workloadand configuration data and forecast future requirements, as well asproviding input into the Financial planning process.

What other utilities are available with the tool?

Provide real time monitoring and interactive tuning of the environment.Ability to input threshold alerting based on high/low watermarks andproactively act.

Monitoring capabilities include the ability to measure CPU and diskutilization, memory occupancy, transaction response time, reports(storage & distribution), printers, network utilization and performance,circuit utilization, backup facilities, WAN/LAN utilization..

Instance level tuning and configuration parameters (memory, I/O,journaling) to address performance problems.

Other integrated tools needed to provide support for this environment?

May require use of some or all of the following monitoring tools:operating system monitor, on-line monitor, batch monitor, data basemonitor, (host, server) and network monitor (WAN, LAN).

How well does the tool integrate and interface with othertools/components in the environment?

Performance measures must be consistent with Service Level managementtechniques

Performance statistics are essential to facilitate ongoing CapacityPlanning and Modeling.

Resource utilization statistics may be used to generate costing, andpotential billings for customers.

Passes data to the resource consumption management facility to report onthe recurring processing cost of each business application.

Physical Site Management

Physical Site Management monitors the central and distributed sitesenvironmental and regulatory levels. Physical Site Management ensuresthat adequate power, cooling facilities, fire suppression, etc. areprovided and maintained to prevent system outages. When necessary,corrective actions are issued and monitored according to pre-definedenvironmental control plans.

Testing (1342)

Ensures that changes to the distributed environment will not negativelyimpact the distributed environment and that changes will cause positivethings to take place (e.g., better system performance, improvedoperability, etc.)

Product Validation

Product Validation tests potential hardware and software for thedistributed environment prior to procurement to determine how well aproduct will fulfill the requirements identified. Product Validationalso ensures that the implementation of a new product will not adverselyaffect the existing environment.

Implementation Considerations

To what extent will the production environment be reflected?

The design of the test environment should reflect the productionenvironment as closely as possible. In principle it is desirable to havean identical set up in both environments. However, this may be costprohibitive and some parts of the configuration may not be critical tobusiness. The contents of the test environment therefore need to bedecided. Yet it is difficult to judge which components of a distributedenvironment may actually impact services. For example, networkingcomponents, such as bridges, are often seen as transparent and notrequired in a test environment, which my mean that several LANs inproduction are only reflected by one LAN in the test environment. Therisk of adopting this approach must be addressed thoroughly, and shouldbe approved be senior management.

What are some limitations that may be encountered within a distributedenvironment?

Because the technologies are new, it may not be possible to accuratelyassess what needs to be tested for a particular product. There are manyconfiguration variants in the distributed environment, a single testenvironment for the validation becomes difficult to achieve and multipletest environments may be required.

Release Testing

Release Testing receives the proper version of a release package (e.g.,software, data, procedures, support materials) and tests the release ofthe upgrade in a test environment to ensure that the:

entire release package is compatible with the existing environment

release package may be released successfully by the planned methods

release can be supported by support personnel.

Implementation Considerations

To what extent will the production environment be reflected?

The design of the test environment should reflect the productionenvironment as closely as possible. In principle it is desirable to havean identical set up in both environments. However, this may be costprohibitive and some parts of the configuration may not be critical tobusiness. The contents of the test environment therefore need to bedecided. Yet it is difficult to judge which components of a distributedenvironment may actually impact services. For example, networkingcomponents, such as bridges, are often seen as transparent and notrequired in a test environment, which my mean that several LANs inproduction are only reflected by one LAN in the test environment. Therisk of adopting this approach must be addressed thoroughly, and shouldbe approved be senior management.

Will release tests cover the full business cycle and use full businessvolumes?

To ensure that the Operability Principles have been satisfied, eachrelease should, in principle, undergo a release test of a full businesscycle (to show that Operations can run it) and full business volumes (toshow that SLA targets can be achieved). These tests are, however,expensive in terms of dedicated hardware requirements, people, andelapsed time.

In practice, Release Planning will propose an approach dependent on themagnitude and sensitivity of change for each release. The approach mustbe approved by senior management. If service levels are not to becompromised, major releases must undergo a full release test.

Repositories (1344)

Repositories contain all the management data generated or used duringthe management process. This includes historical data, capacity data,performance data, problem knowledge bases, asset databases, solutionsets, and management information bases (MIBs). The repositoriescomponent interacts with the management applications, integrationplatform, supporting infrastructure, and presentation components. Againit is important to make sure that the other components of theoperational architecture are compatible with the database tools.

Production Control (1346)

Ensures that production activities are performed and controlled asrequired and as intended.

Backup/Restore Management

Backup and Restore Management considers all of the back-up andrestorations that need to take place across the distributed system formaster copies of data. Depending on the need, these processes may occurcentrally or remotely.

Archiving

Archiving saves and stores information across the distributedenvironment, either centrally or in distributed locations. Archivingmoves data sets, files, etc. from one device to another, usually lowerspeed, device based on a number of parameters. Archiving can be used tomove information to or from distributed and centralized sites.

Integration Platform (1348)

The integration platform provides a common platform for the operationalarchitecture. At the lowest level this means deciding on commonstandards, interfaces, massage formats, and file logging forms to beused with all the management tools. Lastly, some environments use a homegrown integration platform. The choice of integration platforms dependsupon its ability to integrate with the execution and developmentenvironments.

Network Management

Network & Systems Management Planning is responsible for the planningactivities involved in running the day-to-day operations and maintenanceof the production systems (e.g., capacity planning, performanceplanning, etc.).

Supporting Infrastructure (1350)

The supporting infrastructure is the subset of operating systems,utilities, languages, and protocols used to support the management ofthe system. The supporting infrastructure is most often determined bythe execution and development environments and the business applicationson the system. It is necessary to ensure that the other components ofthe operational architecture are compatible with the existing supportinginfrastructure. This limit s the number of possible tool s et solutions.Examples of operating systems include HP-UX, AIX, Solaris, SCO, NovellNOS, MVS, OpenVMS, NT and DOS. Examples of support utilities include PS,GREP, IBCOPY, TAR, CPIO and clock correlation . Examples can be brokendown according to their function within the OSI model. Session protocolsinclude SNMP, CMIP, FTP, and RPC. Transport protocols include TCP andUDP. Network protocols include IP and IPX. Data-Link protocols includeToken Ring, Ethernet, X.25, ATM, SONET, and Frame Relay.

Production Control (1352)

Ensures that production activities are performed and controlled asrequired and as intended.

File Transfer & Control

File Transfer and Control initiates and monitors files being transferredthroughout the system as part of the business processing (e.g., nightlybatch runs). File transfers may occur between any two or more deviseswithin the system.

Implementation Considerations

What platforms will be involved in the file transfers?

The platforms will be determined by both the business and the technicalrequirements. This will impact the selection of the file transfer tools,and, in particular, how the file transfers are controlled from platformto platform.

How many files will be transferred? With what frequency?

The number of files to be transferred as well as their frequency willimpact the capacity required on the system (e.g., network bandwidth) aswell as the production schedule. In addition, if the volume of data issignificant, data compression may be required.

Will store and forward be supported?

Store and forward techniques can help reduce the contention for systemresources during business hours. Store and forward can also reduce theamount of traffic in the system based upon the routing tables definedwithin the system. Instead of having one machine send the same file tomultiple machines, for instance, a cascading forwarding mechanism can beused. This also improves the system performance as files are sent aminimal number of times to certain devices which then forward the fileson to other devices.

What are some limitations that may be encountered?

File transfers in a distributed environment are not confined betweenhosts. File transfers can take place in a bidirectional fashion betweenhosts, servers and workstations. Due to the geographical disparity andnumber of devices in these environments, file transfers will increasethe traffic over the network and will require careful scheduling toensure that the necessary file transfers take place amidst the rest ofthe processing.

Managing Hardware (1354)

Managing hardware is all hardware directly used to manage theenvironment. This includes all staging components. These components aredevoted to systems management functions. Examples of managing hardwareinclude management servers, management controllers, management consoles,probes, and sniffers. One significant component in the hardwaremonitoring arena is Firewall access control policy management. Firewallsare regularly used for network based security management. It istypically a system or group of systems that enforce access controlbetween two or more networks and/or perform network data packetfiltering. Usually packet filtering router hardware and applicationgateways are used to block unauthorized IP packets and enforce proxydefined user commands.

Failure Control (1356)

Involves the detection and correction of faults within the systemwhether they be minor (e.g., workstation is down) or major (i.e., adisaster) has occurred.

Disaster Recovery

In the event of a significant system failure, Disaster Recoveryprocesses will be invoked to re-route the system resources to asecondary, stable configuration until the primary resources can berestored. Within a distributed environment, disaster recovery mustaccount for differing levels of disaster whether at a central ordistributed site(s).

Fault Management

When a negative event has been brought to the attention of the system,actions are undertaken within Fault Management to define, diagnose, andcorrect the fault. Although it may be possible to automate this process,human intervention may be required to perform at least some of thesemanagement tasks.

Implementation Considerations

What are some limitations that may be encountered?

In order to correct faults in a distributed environment, remote faultdiagnosis and correction tools may also be required. It may not bepossible to count on having technical expertise on-sites, forcing faultmanagement to be handled from a centralized area. Products which performthese functions at present, however, provide somewhat limitedcapabilities in this arena.

Recovery

Recovery manages all of the actions needed to restore service deliveryafter a system failure. With critical business applications being rolledout on distributed technologies, the recovery of these systems must beeasy, quick and efficient to guarantee availability of core businesssystems as expressed in the agreed service levels and operationallevels.

Hardware Maintenance

Hardware Maintenance maintains all of the components within adistributed system to protect the investment of the organization.Generally agreed upon in the SLAs, maintenance contracts are carriedout, monitored and recorded for each asset as appropriate.

Implementation Considerations

What will the Hardware Maintenance targets be?

Different hardware components will likely have different maintenancetargets. These targets should be defined based upon information providedby the vendor as well as information provided from other clientengagements.

Where will Hardware Maintenance be required?

Hardware Maintenance may be required at both the central and remotelocations. Careful consideration must be given as to how the hardware atremote locations will be maintained (e.g., by a local expert,third-party vendor, etc.)

Monitoring (1358)

Verifies that the system is continually functioning in accordance withwhatever service levels are defined.

Event Management

An event is an electronic message generated by any component (e.g.,application software, system software, hardware, etc.) in the system.Event Management receives, logs, classifies and presents event messageson a console(s) based on preestablished filters or thresholds.

Implementation Considerations

What type of events will be monitored? More specifically, what servicesneed to be monitored across which devices (e.g., servers, workstations,routers, hubs, bridges)?

The scope of events to be monitored will have a major impact on theapproach taken for Event management and the tools selected.

Where will devices reside on the network, and how frequently will theybe polled?

The number of devices, their respective locations and pollingrequirements will significantly contribute to network bandwidth usage.

Where can event filtering be applied?

In order to reduce bandwidth, it is preferable that event filtering beperformed locally to avoid sending all event information across thenetwork, utilizing bandwidth and central processing capabilityunnecessarily.

What management protocols need to be supported?

The protocol requirements will impact the selection of the tool. Formore information on management protocols, refer to the managementprotocols using SNMP and CMIP as examples.

What are some of the limitations that may be encountered?

The number of events generated in the system will increase due to thecomplexity of the system. Devices will generate events as well asapplications, the technical infrastructure, etc. Common event handlingmechanisms will be required to provide management information in asimple, consistent format and to forward important events on formanagement purposes. In addition, filtering capabilities may also beneeded at remote locations to prevent the streaming of events tocentral/master management consoles.

Performance Management

Performance Management ensures that the required resources are availableat all times throughout the distributed system to meet the agreed uponSLAs. This includes monitoring and management of end-to-end performancebased on utilization, capacity, and overall performance statistics. Ifnecessary, Performance Management can make adjustments to the productionenvironment to either enhance performance or rectify degradedperformance.

Physical Site Management

Physical Site Management monitors the central and distributed sitesenvironmental and regulatory levels. Physical Site Management ensuresthat adequate power, cooling facilities, fire suppression, etc. areprovided and maintained to prevent system outages. When necessary,corrective actions are issued and monitored according to pre-definedenvironmental control plans.

Implementation Considerations

What are some of the limitations that may encountered?

Important to ensure that adequate power, cooling facilities, firesuppression, etc. are provided and maintained to prevent system outagesfrom external environmental factors. With increased computing power atmultiple sites, these tasks may not be simple.

Physical Environment (1360)

The physical environment includes all the support indirectly involved inmaintaining and managing the distributed environment. Initially it wasthought client/server technology would make data centers obsolete.However, with the migration of mission critical processes toclient/server environments, many servers are being maintained in datacenters in an effort to increase reliability. As a result, theimportance of managing the physical environment has increased. Partiallybecause it was initially believed not to be very important and becauseit does not relate directly to the information systems, the physicalenvironment of the operational architecture is often overlooked. Thesesystems include UPS, raised floor, power, site survey and preparation,wiring/cabling, climate control, etc.

Related MODE functions The breakdown the MODE functions by operationalarchitecture layer is meant to provide a guideline. The MODE functionsmentioned within each component are applicable to that component thoughthe function may not be included in that component. For example,Physical Site Management relates to the physical environment in that thephysical environment contains the hardware managed through Physical SiteManagement. Physical Site Management tools do not necessarily reside inthe physical environment layer. Some MODE functions do not require theuse of a tool, while other MODE functions have tool solutions that workin different ways. For this reason some functions were included inmultiple layers while other functions were omitted.

Implementing (1362)

Executes change within the distributed environment with testedcomponents and techniques according to the appropriate plan(s).Implementing includes such things as: initial installation, software &data distribution, license management, etc.

Initial Installation

Initial Installation prepares the physical location for the rollout of anew site or service, pre-assembles the equipment (hardware and software)based on developed specifications, installs the equipment and tests thatthe equipment is fully functional prior to allowing the users to utilizethe system in a production environment.

Implementation Considerations

Some guiding principles:

Precise build procedures must be delivered early enough to drive ReleaseTesting, Procurement, and rollout plans. It must be clear exactly whatthe install process will cover. Who will perform which tasks when andwhere? Software and Data must be available in time to create copies forthe hangar. This means development teams need to ensure availability ofsoftware up to a number of weeks before going live.

To what extent will configuration be performed centrally prior toinstallation?

Some of the configuration tasks can be performed in a central hangar.Assembly of the machines may include configuration and softwareinstallation. Only minor tasks, such as setting networking addresseshave to be performed after the equipment has been delivered to theremote site.

Product Considerations

What is the intended use of the tool?

Prepare physical locations and devices (both HW and SW) for new rolloutbased on developed specifications and perform installation andfunctional testing of new devices prior to release to the users.

What other utilities are available with the tool?

Initial Installation must be able to load rapidly, reliably andconsistently a large number of devices with a standard configuration.Automatic update of asset data accordingly, asset inventory must reflectthe actual state of the devices; their set up and their networkingaddress.

How well does the tool integrate with other tools in the environment?

During Initial Installation, software and data is loaded at themachines. The Software & Data Distribution function may be used to shipsoftware and data to the location where it is to be installed (e.g.remote sites).

Procurement

Procurement is responsible for ensuring that the necessary quantities ofequipment (both hardware and software) are purchased and deliveredon-time to the appropriate locations. Procurement is also responsiblefor logging all assets into the inventory as they are received.

Implementation Considerations

Will Equipment be resourced from multiple or single suppliers?

It is likely that organization will have close and long-termrelationships to certain suppliers. In many cases, suppliers will offerdiscounts to their most loyal customers. These partnerships areadvantageous for both sides, as long as they do not lead to supplierlock-in, i.e. the organization becomes technically dependent on onesupplier. Technical portability and interoperability help supportindependence.

What will be the payment policy (immediate or delayed)?

A management decision is required, which compares cash flow benefitsthrough payment as late as possible against discounts for early payment.This will usually be an extension of an existing policy.

Monitoring (1364)

Verifies that the system is continually functioning in accordance withwhatever service levels are defined.

Physical Site Management

Physical Site Management monitors the central and distributed sitesenvironmental and regulatory levels. Physical Site Management ensuresthat adequate power, cooling facilities, fire suppression, etc. areprovided and maintained to prevent system outages. When necessary,corrective actions are issued and monitored according to pre-definedenvironmental control plans.

Although only a few embodiments of the present invention have beendescribed in detail herein, it should be understood that the presentinvention may be embodied in many other specific forms without departingfrom the spirit or scope of the invention. Therefore, the presentexamples and embodiments are to be considered as illustrative and notrestrictive, and the invention is not to be limited to the details givenherein, but may be modified within the scope of the appended claims.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method for managing a development environmentin a development architecture framework comprising the steps of: (a)managing service to a developer of the development environment based onat least one of service level agreements with the developer andoperations level agreements with the developer; (b) performing aplurality of system management operations on the development environmentselected from the group of system management operations consisting ofstart-up and shut-down operations, back-up and restore operations,archiving operations, security operations, and performance monitoringoperations; and (c) planning service to the developer in order toanticipate and implement changes in the development environment.
 2. Amethod as recited in claim 1, wherein the step of planning service to adeveloper is carried out by service planning tools including at leastone of performance modeling tools and capacity modeling tools.
 3. Amethod as recited in claim 1, wherein the start-up and shut-downoperations are performed with the start-up and shut-down operationsbeing automated.
 4. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein thearchiving operations are performed to transfer data between differentmediums with different compression ratios.
 5. A method as recited inclaim 1, wherein the performance monitoring operations are performed todetermine if resources of the system are sufficient to meet a desiredperformance level.
 6. A computer program embodied on a computer readablemedium for a development environment in a development architectureframework comprising: (a) a code segment that manages service to adeveloper of the development environment based on at least one ofservice level agreements with the developer and operations levelagreements with the developer; (b) a code segment that performs aplurality of system management operations on the development environmentselected from the group of system management operations consisting ofstart-up and shut-down operations, back-up and restore operations,archiving operations, security operations, and performance monitoringoperations; and (c) a code segment that plans service to a developer inorder to anticipate and implement changes in the developmentenvironment.
 7. A computer program as recited in claim 6, wherein thecode segment that plans service to a developer is carried out by serviceplanning tools including at least one of performance modeling tools andcapacity modeling tools.
 8. A computer program as recited in claim 6,wherein the start-up and shut-down operations are performed with thestart-up and shut-down operations being automated.
 9. A computer programas recited in claim 6, wherein the archiving operations are performed totransfer data between different mediums with different compressionratios.
 10. A computer program as recited in claim 6, wherein theperformance monitoring operations are performed to determine ifresources of the system are sufficient to meet a desired performancelevel.
 11. A system for managing a development environment in adevelopment architecture framework comprising: (a) logic that managesservice to a developer of the development environment based on at leastone of service level agreements with the developer and operations levelagreements with the developer; (b) logic that performs a plurality ofsystem management operations on the development environment selectedfrom the group of system management operations consisting of start-upand shut-down operations, back-up and restore operations, archivingoperations, security operations, and performance monitoring operations;and (c) logic that plans service to the developer in order to anticipateand implement changes in the development environment.
 12. A system asrecited in claim 11, wherein the logic that plans service to a developeris carried out by service planning tools including at least one ofperformance modeling tools and capacity modeling tools.
 13. A system asrecited in claim 11, wherein the start-up and shut-down operations areperformed with the start-up and shut-down operations being automated.14. A system as recited in claim 11, wherein the archiving operationsare performed to transfer data between different mediums with differentcompression ratios.
 15. A system as recited in claim 11, wherein theperformance monitoring operations are performed to determine ifresources of the system are sufficient to meet a desired performancelevel.